A bookworm has combined her love of reading and baking to produce these intricate biscuits that look just like the covers of her favourite titles.
Lauren Farrell, 29, started decorating biscuits four years ago as a hobby and after joining a book club, she decided to treat her fellow members to her baked goods.
Since then the admin officer has spoilt her book club friends with brownies, cheesecakes and cupcakes – but nothing quite beats her incredible book biscuits.
Lauren has mastered the art of carefully decorating biscuits to look exactly like the covers of books read by the book club, and the result is almost too good to eat.
She said: “My hobby started with wanting to make iced smiley face biscuits.
“I did some research online, found decorated biscuits using royal icing and since then, I’ve been hooked!
“Since I joined the book club three years ago, I have baked something to bring in every month.
“Last year, I decided to challenge myself and make a biscuit version of that month’s book – Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.
“I then made the 12 books we read in 2019 for our final book club last year.
“Since then, I’ve made book biscuits quite a few times, most recently the book club books of 2020.
“Members of the book club do enjoy my biscuits! I make sure they all get taken home and they’re usually eaten.”
Armed with a piping bag, Lauren decorates her freshly baked biscuits with homemade coloured royal icing with an edible marker on stand by for tiny intricate details.
She decorates the biscuits layer by layer and uses a dehydrator to dry the icing in between each layer.
Lauren, from Melbourne, Australia, said: “I do find the decorating calming. Its also a chance to be creative.
“I sometimes brush some icing on to get some texture, like you can see on ‘The White Girl’ book biscuit.
“‘The Rosie Project’ trilogy was fun to make, and ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’. When they’re tricky, it’s a fun challenge!
“My favourite book is ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara, but I haven’t made a biscuit version of that one yet.”
The book biscuits have gone down a storm with not only Lauren’s book club, but also with the authors of the books that she has transformed her biscuits to look like.
After seeing Lauren’s biscuit version of the cover of his book ‘An Absolutely Remarkable Thing’, author Hank Green tweeted a photo of the biscuit, saying ‘SO DELICIOUS’.
Author Adam Kay tweeted ‘This is AMAZING!’ after seeing Lauren’s biscuit adaptations of his books ‘This Is Going To Hurt’ and ‘Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas’.
Author Trent Dalton shared an image of Lauren’s biscuit that she decorated to look like his book ‘All Our Shimmering Skies’ with the caption ‘Delicious and thought-provoking.’
Lauren said: “It is nice hearing the authors do like my book biscuits!
“A few of them have replied to my photos of the covers and seem to think they’re cool.
“I hope they see my adaptations of their books as a compliment.”