This week engineers at Columbia University unveiled the world's nastiest-looking cheesecake. The engineers were very proud of their creation which used 3D-printing to squirt layers of goo into an approximately triangular shape that looks like something you will never willingly put into your mouth.

Using a previously-unknown definition of the word "appealing," Christen Cooper, with Pace University Nutrition and Dietetics, said with a straight face that the technique "may also be useful in making food more appealing to those with swallowing disorders by mimicking the shapes of real foods with the pureed texture foods that these patients... require."

The printer utilizes tubes of squirty liquids that supposedly taste like graham cracker crust, peanut butter, black strawberry jelly, Nutella, overripe banana puree, pink frosting, and cherry drizzle. Combined these generate the "cheesecake", which is kind of a stretch considering none of the tubes is labeled with a "cheesecake" flavor.

The lack of cheesecake in the cheesecake was confirmed when team member Jonathan Blutinger said "The design of our print became similar to constructing a home where floors, walls, and ceilings being the foundation (graham cracker) and inner pools (Nutella and peanut butter) holding softer ingredients within (banana and jelly)."

Apparently Jonathan has never made a cheesecake before because cheesecake is not made from walls of Nutella and peanut butter filled with banana and jelly ooze. Cheesecake is made from things like cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and sugar. Graham crackers do not come in paste form.

The engineering team has not shared how their creation tastes, only that it is vegan.

Check it out yourself

jared@pigdog.org