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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

3D Food Printing

Redefine Meat Launches 5 “New Meat” Plant-Based Proteins in Israel

Plant-based meat company Redefine Meat announced five new products are now available at select Israeli restaurants and hotels. The “New-Meat” line consists of Redefine Burger, Redefine Ground Beef, Redefine Lamb Kabob, Redefine Sausage, and Redefine Cigar (a classic Middle East dish that wraps meat in pastry).

As we’ve covered before:

Redefine Meat uses 3D-printing technology along with ingredients it calls “Alt-Fat,” “Alt-Muscle,” and “Alt-Blood” to create whole cuts of plant-based meat that mimic animal-based meat. The company has also mapped out 70 sensorial parameters that let it control factors such as texture, juiciness, fat distribution and mouthfeel.

It should be noted that the products Redefine announced today are not whole cuts, but rather ground versions of meat. This is a pretty standard way for plant-based meat companies to enter the market because replicating the structure of animal meat with plants is way more difficult than creating a minced product.

And like Impossible Foods, Redefine Meat is first going to restaurants with its new plant-based meats. It’s “New-Meats” are available at: Hudson, Nam, Asif Center, Eddi’s Hideout, The Lounge, Sinta Bar, C2, Guesta, Joz & DanieBudega, and American Kitchen.

Redefine plans to expand New-Meat availability to Europe in Q4 of this year followed by U.S. and Asian expansion in 2022.

The entire plant-based meat space is getting more sophisticated and moving beyond burgers (pardon the pun). Juicy Marbles introduced its (expensive) plant-based filet mignon in March of this year. In January of this year NovaMeat, which also uses 3D printing technology to create meat analogues, received €250,000 (~ $307,500 USD at the time) from the Spanish government and announced a collaboration with Disfrutar, a two-Michelin star restaurant. Other players in the 3D-printed plant-based meat space include fellow Israeli companies MeaTech and SavorEats (both of which are publicly traded on the Israeli stock exchange).

At the beginning of this year, Redefine Meat announced a partnership with Israeli meat distributor Best Meister and followed that with a $29 million Series A round of funding. The company plans to debut its whole cuts of plant-based meat at the end of this year, following pilot tests.

Print a Drink 3D Prints Designs Inside a Cocktail, Develops Smaller Machine for Corporations

We’ve seen 3D printers create cake decorations, personalized vitamins, and even cultured beef. And now, thanks to Print a Drink’s robot, we’ve seen custom designs printed inside a cocktail. You might think such beverage witchcraft would be impossible. I mean, how could a design be suspended and hold its shape in anything other than a jello shot? Turns out it just takes the right drink, the right droplet and the precision of a robotic arm.

Based in Austria, Print a Drink has actually been around for three years. It was started by Benjamin Greimel as a university research project. Since that time, Print a Drink has created two working robots (one in the U.S. and one in Europe) that up until the pandemic would travel to special events and conferences printing out custom designs inside drinks at parties and such.

So how does it work? Print a Drink uses a robotic arm with a custom-made printer head attached to it. The robot uses a glass needle to inject a food-grade, oil-based liquid inside a drink. The drink itself needs to be less than 40 percent alcohol and can’t be a straight shot of something like vodka or whiskey because the injected beads won’t hold and will float to the surface. Greimel explained to me via video chat this week that the combination of liquid density, temperature and robotic movement allow the designs to last for roughly 10 minutes before dissipating.

Coordinating all those puzzle pieces is complicated to say the least. In addition to setting up the robot at an event and operating it, there are specific requirements around drinks that can be used, and designs need to be uploaded into the robot. Plus, there are safety concerns because the robotic arm does move about pretty quickly. Because of all those reasons, Print a Drink’s business has been around renting the robot ($2,500 – $5,000, depending on the event) and not selling them outright. In addition to all of the complications above, staff would need to be trained properly on how to use the machine, and chances are good that the people operating the devices are not roboticists who can troubleshoot.

To make Print a Drink more accessible, Greimel and his partner (the only two people at the company) have developed a smaller, self-contained version of the robot that is roughly the size of a countertop coffee machine. But don’t expect a consumer version for your next backyard soirée. This smaller version is still complicated, and still requires training, so the company is targeting large corporations like Disney or a hotel chain like Hilton where it could be installed and used for special events or promotions. Greimel said the first prototype of this smaller Print a Drink will be available in the next week.

Though more specialized, Print a Drink is part of a bigger automation movement happening with booze right now. In addition to robot-powered bars like Glacierfire popping up, we’re also seeing automated drink dispensing vending machines from Rotender and Celia start to hit the market. It’s not hard to see all of these types of robots working in tandem, however, with a robo-bartender pumping out standard cocktails, while Print a Drink prints up specialty drinks customized for special occasions. We’ll drink to that.

MeaTech 3D Files a Patent for Printing More Cultivated Meat

Bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D has filed a patent with the United States Patent Office (USPTO) it says could significantly improve the manufacturing process for its cultivated meat.

The Ness Ziona, Israel-based company has since 2018 been developing a method for cultivated meat that relies on 3D bioprinting. Cells are extracted from the animal (without harming it) and transferred to bioreactors, where they multiply before getting differentiated into different cell types, such as fat and muscle. That process is, with some variation, akin to just about any company developing cultivated meat right now.

Where MeaTech’s method starts to differ is when the bio-inks come into play. The bio-inks are formed from the cell types mentioned above, like muscle and fat, and scaffolding material, which provides structural support cells can adhere to as they grow and mature. Once the inks are loaded into a 3D bioprinter, they are printed to, in MeaTech’s own description, “assemble cells as they would be found in a conventional cut of muscle.” The printed product is incubated to form tissue and eventually become a full cut of meat that goes to the consumer. 

Needless to say, nobody’s buying full cuts of steak from MeaTech on store shelves at the moment. The company has so far only printed a carpaccio-like layer of meat, which is considerably thinner than a ribeye-sized cut of meat. It will likely be years before the latter emerges as an actual product, though MeaTech has recently announced a pilot production facility that will help in this process.

The company’s main competitor in this area is Aleph Farms, also based in Israel. Earlier this year, Aleph said it had developed a 3D-printed ribeye cultivated steak. Elsewhere, however, many cultivated meat companies continue to focus on unstructured meat like grounds, nuggets, and patties.

MeaTech says the patent filed for this week will give the company more control during the printing process, increase printing speeds, and allow for a greater variety of inks. The end goal, of course, is to improve the manufacturing process overall in order to get the company closer to making whole cuts of meat. 

  

MeaTech 3D Will Produce Cultivated Fat, Whole Steaks at Its Forthcoming Pilot Facility

Israeli bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D this week became the latest cultivated meat company to announce a pilot production facility, which the company intends to have operational in 2022. The plant’s location is yet to be announced. MeaTech said they will use the facility to increase the production of cultured chicken fat from Peace of Meat, a Belgian company MeaTech acquired in December of 2020. 

MeaTech says cultured fat can “significantly enhance” the texture, flavor, and mouthfeel of plant-based meat alternatives, giving them an altogether “meatier” taste than is available with current plant-based meat analogues. MeaTech said in this week’s announcement that it plans to license its cultivated fat tech — including cell lines and bioprocesses — to other companies wishing to improve their plant-based products.

However, cultivated fat is only one part of MeaTech’s overall plan. In tandem, the company will continue to develop a process for whole cuts of cultivated meat — namely steak and chicken breast — using 3D bioprinting tech.

Developing full cuts of cultivated meat is far more difficult than making minced products for burgers or chicken bites. With full cuts of meat, the various cells, including those for muscle, fat, blood vessels, and connective tissue, have to grow together, on scaffolding, to achieve the desired cut of meat. This is a significantly more intricate process than simply growing the different cells then manually combining them at the end, as can be done for a patty or nugget.

Aleph Farms, also based in Israel, is the other notable company attempting to produce whole cuts of cultivated meat. Earlier this year, the company said they had developed a 3D bioprinted Ribeye steak from cultivated protein.

So far, MeaTech has printed a carpaccio-like layer of meat. A full steak or chicken breast is in all likelihood years away. While the forthcoming pilot production facility will first be used to scale up production of Peace of Meat’s cultured fat, it will eventually incorporate MeaTech’s bioprinting tech to produce the aforementioned whole cuts of meat.

Revo Foods Raises €1.5M to Advance its 3D-Printed Alternative Salmon

Austria-based Revo Foods crafts 3D-printed salmon made from plant-based ingredients, and over the weekend the company announced that it has raised €1.5 million euros (~$1.78 million USD) in funding. This is the company’s first round of funding, and it included participation from Hazelpond Capital, Eva Summer (CPO of Peace of Meat), Friends2grow, Jens Schuman, MKO Holdings, and national support from the FFG Austrian Research Promotion Agency and Vienna Business Agency.

Revo Foods’ funding will be used to accelerate its 3D food printing process, as well as expand its team. The company has several plant-based salmon products that its plans on launching in Europe this year. Its smoked salmon strips and smoked salmon spread is made from pea protein, citrus fiber, and algae oil (these products are not made through 3D printing). The plant-based salmon sashimi is still being developed, and is created using a 3D printing process to create complex structures similar to real salmon.

The company held the first live tasting of its plant-based salmon products at the beginning of March. The tasting was held in Vienna, Austria and Revo Foods partnered with Budapest Bagels to serve its smoked salmon strips in the bagels. Only a handful of journalists were able to attend in person, and one food vegan food writer said, “It tastes too similar like fish, I can hardly eat it.”

There are a few other notable players in the plant-based fish space, however, these companies do not use 3D printing like Revo Foods. In the U.S., Gathered Foods (the parent company of Good Catch) raised $26.35 million in a B-2 bridge funding round at the beginning of April. Hooked is a Swedish-based company that produces plant-based tuna and shredded salmon alternatives. New Wave Foods announced the last week of March that its’ plant-based seafood alternative is now available for foodservice companies and restaurants.

Revo Foods plans on launching its smoked salmon strips first in Europe within 2021. In the next two to three months, the company expects to finalize the development of its plant-based salmon sashimi.

Redefine Meat Raises a $29M Series A Round for its 3D-Printed Plant-Based Meats

Israeli plant-based meat startup Redefine Meat announced today that it has closed a $29 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Happiness Capital and Hanaco Ventures with participation from CPT Capital, Losa Group, Sake Bosch, and K3 Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by Redefine to $35 million.

Redefine Meat uses 3D-printing technology along with ingredients it calls “Alt-Fat,” “Alt-Muscle,” and “Alt-Blood” to create whole cuts of plant-based meat that mimic animal-based meat. The company has also mapped out 70 sensorial parameters that let it control factors such as texture, juiciness, fat distribution and mouthfeel.

Last June, Redefine Meat announced that it had achieved high-production of its industrial-level 3D-printing capabilities, allowing the company to print 50 steaks in an hour. In its press announcement today, Redefine Meat said its new large-scale production facility will be completed later this year.

Last month, Redefine Meat announced that it had partnered with Israeli meat distributor Best Meister, which allowed Redefine’s 3D printed meats to be distributed across Israel. Through that arrangement, Redefine said would bring its plant-based meats to market in Israel sometime during Q1 of this year, starting with high-end butchers and restaurants.

February has actually been a pretty active month in the world of 3D-printed alternative proteins. Revo Foods (formerly Legendary Vish) announced it is using its 3D printing technology to create salmon sashimi. And cultured-meat startup Aleph Farms said that it had successfully 3D-bioprinted a ribeye steak.

Redefine Meat is working on other cuts of plant-based meat and said it will use its new funding to expand its meat portfolio, support its commercial launch and international growth throughout this year.

Legendary Vish Rebrands to Revo Foods, Plans to Host Tasting for 3D Printed Salmon Soon

When I last spoke to Robin Simsa, the CEO of Legendary Vish, the company was working on a prototype of a 3D printed plant-based salmon fillet. Now, the company has rebranded to Revo Foods, plans on launching three new products, and will host a tasting in March.

To hear about the details of Revo Foods’ recent news, I hopped on a Zoom call with Simsa this week. Simsa said the company rebranded to Revo Foods so they were not tied down to just producing fish alternative products. The company has now decided to prioritize other plant-based salmon products and one tuna product. Revo Foods wanted to focus first on products that could be consumed cold with no prep, but will still be working on the salmon fillet on the side.

The two products that will be launched by the company are plant-based smoked salmon strips and a smoked salmon spread. The main ingredients in these products include pea protein, citrus fiber, and algae oil, and 3D printing will not be used to create these products. Revo Foods will apply 3D printing techniques for the creation of its salmon sashimi, which uses similar ingredients to the previously mentioned products. The company has plans to work on a tuna product as well, but details are not made available yet.

As far as we know, Revo foods is the only company combining plant-based ingredients and 3D printing to produce alternative salmon products. US-based Sophie’s Kitchen produces smoked salmon lox using konjac as the main ingredient. Hooked, a Swedish start-up produces a shredded plant-based tuna. Other plant-based seafood companies like Good Catch and New Wave are focused on providing alternatives for other seafood species, like tuna and shrimp.

The plant-based salmon products from Revo Foods will be ready to launch around the summer of this year, and the company has partnered with several restaurants throughout Vienna, Austria for the launch. Revo Foods will be hosting a tasting of its plant-based salmon products on March 6 in Vienna.

Aleph Farms Makes a Cultivated 3D-Bioprinted Ribeye Steak

Israel-based startup Aleph Farms and its research partner, the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Israel Institute of Technology, said today that they have developed a cultivated 3D-bioprinted ribeye steak. The steak contains muscle, fat, and structure identical to what would be found in a steak from a cow, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

To create the cultivated ribeye steak, a technique called 3D bioprinting was used. This is different from 3D printing because living cells, which have been extracted from living animals, are actually printed. Once the living cells are printed, they are incubated to grow and interact to form tissues and structures identical to those found in a steak from an animal. Other companies that use 3D printing to produce meat alternatives, like NovaMeat and Redefine Meat, print plant-based proteins and fats.

In 2018, Aleph Farms unveiled a cultivated thin-cut steak. At the time, the steak was not produced using 3D bioprinting, and Aleph Farms was limited to making its first product just a few inches long and a few centimeters thick. At the end of last year, the company shared that it had created a platform for the commercial production of its cultured meat, called BioFarm, which the company hopes to have fully operational by 2022.

It is still early into 2021, and in addition to Aleph Farms’ news, there has already been a plethora of cultured meat news. At the end of January, NovaMeat announced that it had created the world’s largest piece of 3D-printed cultivated meat. Mirai Foods raised $2.7 million a few weeks ago to accelerate the commercialization of its cultured meat. Eat Just made headlines at the end of last year with its first commercial sale of cultured meat.

Aleph Farms says now that it has successfully created an entire steak it can essentially create any shape and type of steak. In the press release, the company shared that it will continue to expand its portfolio of cultivated meat products.

Food Tech News: The World’s Largest Piece of Cultured Meat, Coca-Cola Delivery Via Drone

Welcome to this week’s Food Tech News round-up! We found some interesting tidbits this week, including the world’s largest piece of cultured meat, Coca-Cola’s drone delivery, Carnival Cruise’s step towards sustainability, and funding for HIPPEAS chickpea snacks.

NovaMeat produces the world’s largest piece of cultured meat

3D meat printer NovaMeat announced that it had successfully created what it is calling the world’s largest piece of cultured meat, with a volume of 22500 mm3 (1.4 cubic inches). NovaMeat has so far created 3D-printed steak and pork made from plant-based proteins, but is now creating hybrid meat alternatives through the combination of plant-proteins and cells from cultivated meat. After announcing this accomplishment, the company shared it will hold an investment round in the next few months and aims to increase the production speed of its 3D-printed meat to 100Kg/hour.

Photo from Coca-Cola’s website

Coca-Cola delivers coffee flavored soda via drone

Coca-Cola partnered with Walmart and drone provider DroneUP to make aerial deliveries of its new beverage, a coffee-infused soda. The drone was launched from a Walmart in Coffee County, Georgia, and delivered to a select few consumers located within a mile of the Walmart. The coffee soda is infused with Brazilian coffee, and comes in three flavors, caramel, dark blend, and vanilla – with a sugar-free option in the vanilla and dark blend flavors. The 12oz cans are shelf-stable and offer 69mg of caffeine. The soda was trialed successfully in Japan in 2018, and as of it January 25th, 2021, the Coca-Cola with Coffee beverage is now available in the US.

Photo of a digester from BioHiTech’s website

Carnival Cruise Lines and Princess Cruise Lines aim to reduce food waste through BioHiTech’s food digesters

BioHiTech, which offers technology solutions and services to combat the environmental issues of landfill waste, will provide 14 cruise ships from Carnival Cruise Lines and Princess Cruise Lines with its Revolution Series food digesters for food waste onboard. The digesters process food waste through odorless, aerobiotic digestion and convert the waste into a liquid that can be drained into the cruise ship’s wastewater line. This prevents food waste from reaching the landfill and saves the cruise line costs associated with waste management. The order from BioHiTech totals approximately $2 million USD and will be completed in Q2 of 2021.

Photo from HIPPEAS’ Instagram

HIPPEAS raises $50M for chickpea snacks

Whole Foods predicted that chickpea would trend as an ingredient in 2021, and they certainly were correct. Chickpeas are being used in everything from alternative eggs to snack foods, and HIPPEAS Organic Chickpea Snacks announced that it has raised $50 million in funding this week from The Craftory Limited. The company will use these funds to increase production, expand distribution, and add to its positive impact projects. All of the company’s products are organic, vegan, gluten-free, and products include flavored chickpea puffs and chickpea tortilla chips. I can personally attest that HIPPEAS products are delicious, and it is too easy to crush an entire bag of the vegan white cheddar chickpea puffs.

Novameat Gets €250,000 From Spanish Govt, Partners With Culinary Gastronomy All-Star Team From Disfrutar

Novameat, a Spanish startup that uses 3D printing technology to create whole-cuts of plant-based meat such as beef steak or pork fillets, has received €250,000 (~ $307,500 USD) from the government of Spain, according to an announcement sent to the Spoon. The funding comes via a Spanish government technology development organization called the NEOTEC Program of the Spanish Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI).

Novameat plans to use the funding to help to ramp up production of 3D printed meat through the integration of its microextrusion-technology into higher-output industrial printing machines. The company’s microextrusion technology, which intricately prints plant-based proteins at microscopic levels, was developed by Novameat CEO Giuseppe Scionti when he was a professor of bioengineering at the University of Catalunya.

The funding follows what was a fairly eventful 2020 for the company. In October, Scionti announced at the Smart Kitchen Summit that Novameat had developed a prototype to create hybrid products that combined 3D printed plant-based scaffolding with cultured meat cells. In May, the company announced it had developed a realistic plant-based pork product. Prior to that, the company announced it had developed a second generation of its plant-based steak.

As part of the news, Novameat also announced a collaboration with Disfrutar, a two-Michelin star restaurant that one list ranks as the 9th best restaurant in the world. The chefs behind Disfrutar are a part of the same culinary creative team from early molecular gastronomy pioneering restaurant El Bulli.

I asked Scionti what the collaboration with Disfrutar will look like.

“Disfrutar will have full-access to Novameat’s patented micro-extrusion technology through 3D printing.” said Scionti. “Disfrutar’s creativity lab now already has Novameat’s first 3D printer located outside Novameat’s Innovation Lab. The three chefs have been working 2 decades as El Bulli chefs and two of them (Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch) were part of the legendary creativity Lab of El Bulli, ElBullitaller. This group of chefs is the same that invented spherification technique of molecular gastronomy.”

Today’s funding follows a 2019 investment by New Crop Capital (sum undisclosed). Scionti told the Spoon that Novameat is planning to raise additional funding in 2021, which he expects to be a big year for the company.

“3D printing is a very fast technology to iterate and test new formulations and textures everyday, and it can be the enabler to unlock the future of personalized nutrition,” said Scionti. “2021 will be the most important year so far at Novameat as we’ll launch in restaurants, launch our scaffold as a service business model for cell-based industry, and what I care most, we’ll scale up with bigger machines to ensure we contribute to the future of planet’s health.”

If you want to see Novameat’s 3D meat printer in action you can watch the video of the printing demo at Smart Kitchen Summit below. You can also watch the company demo their scaffolding printing technology live at Food Tech Live next week (get your free ticket here).

Novameat 3D Prints Plant-Based Meat at Smart Kitchen Summit 2020

3D Meat Printing Startup SavorEat Goes Public, Raises $13M via IPO

SavorEat, the Israeli startup developing a 3D printing platform for plant-based meat alternatives, has had an initial public offering (IPO) on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), raising NIS 42.6 million ($13 million) in funding.

The company is the second 3D meat-printing startup to go public this year, but will be the first company focused on plant-based meat analogs to trade on Israel’s stock exchange. The first meat printing startup, MeaTech (trading as Meat-Tech 3D Ltd), is developing technology for printing cultured steak.

The IPO comes on the heels of $5.5 million in venture funding raised earlier this year, including a $3 million funding round raised this summer. According to the company, they plan on using the IPO funds to continue developing its technology, which is unique in that it both prints and cooks the meat simultaneously.

From The Spoon’s earlier post on SavorEat:

SavorEat’s technology prints and cooks simultaneously, which allows the company’s printers to make a fully cooked piece of 3D printed meat like you might see produced by a futuristic appliance like that in the TV show Upload.

The food comes out “ready to be eaten,” said Racheli Vizman, company CEO. “We’re printing one layer, then we cook one layer, print one layer, cook one layer. So at the end, you get something that’s ready to be consumed.”

I caught up with Vizman via email to ask her about why she decided to take SavorEat public. You can see her answers below:

Why did you decide to go IPO vs. raise venture funding for more financing? 

Vizman: Going IPO has some additional advantages, such as the recognition of the potential we have as a company in the local ecosystem as well as the potential of the foodtech market, this brings a lot of new growing and business opportunities locally and globally, access to capital in the future and the money we raised will help us to continue to develop our technology, product and market penetration.

How big a deal is it to be publicly traded in Israel? In the US, it takes quite a bit of work in advance to prepare for an IPO for NASDAQ or the NYSE. 

Vizman: Since I have experience in preparing for an IPO in Nasdaq (in Beyond Air), the requirement are more or less similar while the timeframe in TASE is shorter. Putting this aside, it is a very big deal on its own as there have been just a very few IPOs in TASE in the past year, being one of this few showcases the importance of the company’s activity for the local market. 

What do you plan to do with the money? 

Vizman: To boost the development activities, adding additional pilots testing and support commercialization. We are also in the stage in which we are looking for global partnerships (with a focus on the US market) and we hope this recognition of TASE will boost that as well.

Is being public similar to the US where you have to report financial results every quarter? 

Vizman: Yes it is more or less similar but for medium size companies we need to report every 6 months

Kickstarter: Cakewalk Brings Edible 3D Printing to Your Home

Damn those adorable bakers on The Great British Baking Show! They make piping and decorating cakes look so easy. But anytime I fill up a piping bag to add decorative lines or write out “Happy Birthday” on a cake or tart, it winds up looking like a crime scene.

But perhaps I can make up for my lack of manual precision with some automation. Cakewalk is a kit that launched on Kickstarter today, which promises to let you 3D print elegant, edible, designs and writings on your home baked goods.

How much it costs and what you get depends on the level you back. At the low end, €49 (~$57 USD) gets you just the core extruder. At €89 (~$104 USD) you get the complete kit, which includes the extruder as well as the motor that you assemble and attach to your own 3D printer. On the high end, €459 (~$537 USD) gets you a 3D printer with the Cakewalk already assembled.

According to the campaign page, the Cakewalk has been tested and works with chocolate, meringue, vegetable puree, ketchup, guacamole and honey. Simply stir up the ingredients, add them to the Cakewalk tube (that you attached to your 3D printer) and print out your designs.

The printer works with existing 3D printing software, and the parts can be easily added to and removed from an existing 3D printers, so there is no need to buy an additional 3D printer just for food.

We’ve actually written about Marine Coré-Baillais, the creator of Cakewalk, before. She was CEO of French 3D-printing company Sculpteo before going to culinary school to become a pastry chef. As Spoon Founder, Mike Wolf, wrote at the time:

I asked Baillais why she decided to tackle 3D food printing after working at a big 3D printing services startup focused on enterprise applications. She told me it was in part due the frustration that had built up over the past decade at the relative lack of interest from the food industry in using 3D printing.

As of today, Cakewalk has already raised $5,000 of its $11,752 campaign goal. The company says it will ship Cakewalks to backers in December of this year. In the meantime, you can finish up this season of The Great British Baking Show for even more inspiration.