It's an electric griddle made of an array of small, individually temperature controlled heating elements could produce pancakes with monochrome images.

Image files would be loaded in to the controlling computer. The computer would set the temperature of the appropriate elements to create the desired image.

A monochrome projector system could display the image on the grill surface in the actual size and position so you'd know where to pour the batter.

Options:
* Interface to your schedule software to cook reminders of the day's activities on to your breakfast?
* Make pancakes without egg yolks for whiter batter, lower cholesterol & higher image contrast?
-- half, Feb 09 2005

Inspiration: Elvis Pancake Fryingpan Elvis_20Pancake_20Fryingpan
[half, Feb 09 2005]

Images on Toast http://news.bbc.co....ci/tech/1264205.stm
Uses stencils, though. [Detly, Feb 09 2005]

Frozen Flapjacks Frozen_20Flapjacks
You say pancake, I say Flapjack? The debate continues. [energy guy, Feb 09 2005]

Pancake Logos http://www.mcdonald...res/mcgriddles.html
Yummy [jaksplat, Feb 09 2005]

3D version One_20Piece_20Gyroscope
3D printer that fades density to control performance of a material [JesusHChrist, Feb 09 2005]

Kwik Kopy for cakes http://www.kopykake.com/pc_index.html
I'm not sure if it'll work without icing. [jaksplat, Feb 10 2005]

Potatograph Potatograph
reminded me of this. Seems related somehow.... Must be the DPI [sophocles, Feb 10 2005]

Zcorp 3D printer (uses edible powder) http://www.zcorp.com/
[JesusHChrist, Feb 11 2005]

Re: BatterJet Plotter comment - it was bound to happen http://www.pddnet.c...kfast-pancake-maker
Print Custom-Shaped Breakfast with this Pancake Maker [half, Mar 28 2015]

:)

Make mine in the shape of pixelated Pac-Man!
-- DesertFox, Feb 09 2005


Pancakes with geography printed on them. Have a map of Middle Earth for breakfast.
-- Detly, Feb 09 2005


IHOP should buy these grid-dles, to inscribe their logo in each hotcake they serve.
They could print their daily special menu on a pancake for each customer as they arrive.
Inscribe pancake-related images, such as maple leaves, wheat stalks.
Hide berries in the pancakes, then inscribe a big berry in the top pancake.
These might also be readable by touch.
At weddings, serve pancakes inscribed with portraits of bride and groom.
Favorite cartoon characters

This has copy protection applications too. Fry a digital watermark into your pancakes. No more forged flapjacks.

Problem - How do you keep the heat from bleeding and blurring the image? Use a metal that doesn't conduct heat well?
-- robinism, Feb 09 2005


I had thought of a couple of options regarding the pixel bleeding: 1) do nothing, how good is pancake's resolution going to be anyway? It might just make nice smooth transitions between pixels 2) thin ceramic insulators between elements.

Regarding IHOP: I had that as a second note in the annotation that I originally posted on the Elvis pan idea (using the fictitious Ye Olde Pancake House as an example). My thought there was that the conventional heating elements could be thermally coupled to the griddle in such a way as to create predictable hotspots in the shape of a corporate logo; repeating pattern over the entire grill surface, etc. I doubt that resolution could be high enough to get away with a small logo.

(It surprises me how often you think of the same issues, options and extensions that I do. You're not my second account that I don't know about are you?)
-- half, Feb 09 2005


Very nice. (+) You could even have the image of the perfect pancake embazoned on your pancake.
-- energy guy, Feb 09 2005


Oh yeah - Robinism, dont you open up the debate about Flapjacks v/s pancakes again (see link).
-- energy guy, Feb 09 2005


A 3D version of this would make one piece gyros by density fading (see link)
-- JesusHChrist, Feb 09 2005


About the heat blur thing - there are three ways to transmit heat, right? Convection, conduction, and radiation? The pan is using conduction. But what if you used focused radiaton? You could get precise dots then...? (I'm thinking of those experiments with the sun and a magnifying glass.) AND a pancake cooked with focused radiation would be low in fat!
-- robinism, Feb 09 2005


what if patrons could have their photo taken as they entered the restaurant and have their own face GridGriddled on their pancake. Cute couples even. What makes a more intimate 'night after' breakfast than nibbling on a flapjack with you and your lover's picture on it.
-- ORISIS, Feb 09 2005


I like the portrait/photograph idea. This might be a good gimmick to draw in business: child's photo (or silhouete if resolution is too low) along with a "Happy Birthday" message cooked on a pancake.

Maybe special Valentine's Day messages or pancake marriage proposals...sure, it doesn't sound so romantic now, but someday it'll be all the rage.
-- half, Feb 09 2005


Liked the first name better.
-- DesertFox, Feb 10 2005


Thanks. Since it's nigh on to impossible to use the word matrix these days without being associated with "The Matrix", I changed it.
-- half, Feb 10 2005


Incorporate colored syrups. Either have the optional pancake syrupjet printer, or just colored syrups and a paintbrush.
-- Worldgineer, Feb 10 2005


Paintcake by numbers?
-- normzone, Feb 10 2005


[half] - what about "The Baketrix?"

Yes, I know we're frying, not baking.
-- Detly, Feb 11 2005


If you ever want to play around with pancake pictures and you haven't a foundry and machine shop handy, I have found a way to make some passably pictorial pancake paintings.

Mix cocoa powder--a lot of cocoa powder--into a small portion of batter and put the chocolate batter into a squeeze bottle, like a ketchup squeeze bottle you see at cheap restaurants.

Quickly layout your chocolate batter line art on the griddle and let it cook for just long enough to set up a bit and then carefully ladle the regular batter in and around the chocolate line work.

It's helpful to make sure that you describe a perimeter with your chocolate lines to enclose the regular batter. Lay down the outline first so that it sets up more thoroughly to better contain the reqular batter.

It's fun to do and my son adores them.
-- bristolz, Feb 11 2005


Now, there's an idea. A BatterJet plotter puts the pattern on the grill, starts a short timer, you apply the rest of the batter when time's up...fancy-pants pancakes. (Or maybe the BatterJet applies both the dark and the light batter in the Dee-lux model.)
-- half, Feb 11 2005


BatterJet. I like it.

I think a spin-art pancake griddle with a number of different bottles of colored batter might be fun. Messy, but fun.
-- bristolz, Feb 11 2005


Messy and fun aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Yeah, that wouldn't be terribly difficult to do. Some sort of slip ring/brush arrangement to power a standard electric frying pan attached to a rotating platform...cool. The high sides of the pan could help keep the mess to a minimum. Sounds like an idea of its own.
-- half, Feb 11 2005


These 3D printers (see link) use organic powder (like pancake mix) and binder ink. There is a restaruant in New York that is printing edible "sushi" using this machine. The machine prints in color too so I guess you could print 3D scenes that would change as you sliced them.
-- JesusHChrist, Feb 11 2005


Hmm... 3D pancake sculpture... and Fortune Pancakes.
-- spacer, Feb 12 2005


I'm trying to work out a way to use those nail-pattern thingies to preshape the griddle to any form.
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 12 2005


I was thinking about that too. I didn't get anywhere beyond a disposable aluminum foil layer formed over the pins.

I guess instead of the mushroom head pins, the "heads" could be made of a hexagonal stock, loose enough to allow them to slide up and down side by side, then clamped tight around the perimeter to lock them in place and minimize the amount of batter that could ooze in between them. Removing the pancake from it would be tricky. I reckon they'd have to be covered with teflon or similar.
-- half, Feb 12 2005


I'll have the Shroud Of Flapjacks, please.
-- thumbwax, Feb 12 2005


Put servos and solid state control in the griddle handle, and route in water through (carbon fiber nano) tubules. I'm sure Intel could design a chip for us that pulls power and heats in excess of 270C.
-- reensure, Feb 13 2005



random, halfbakery