Books & Literature

Cookbook Review: Well Read Cookies, by Lauren Chater

A whimsical celebration of beloved works of literature in the shape of beautiful iced biscuits, from Jane Austen & Mary Shelley, to Tolkien Dr. Seuss & JK Rowling.

Literary cookies that look less than amazing when made by one without great baking skills!
3

I can’t say that I have ever had a desire to bake cookies that resemble the greatest books of all time, but the novelty is certainly a fun one.

Lauren Chater has whipped up (and photographed magnificently) her vision of what great literature would look like in edible form in Well Read Cookies. The book is itself an art piece, with carefully created, designed and gloriously thick pages to turn and admire – one that lovers of coffee table books will enjoy as much as those wishing to bake the cookies within.

Visually a masterpiece, one cannot help but feel a twinge of dread when reading the book and looking for guidance on how to recreate the artful cookies themselves. Chater offers delicate commentary on the books she has chosen to represent and some minimal guidance on each design, but for novice bakers looking for step-by-step instructions, you will need to look elsewhere.

The base cookie recipes themselves are not located at the beginning of the book either. You will need to go to the very end for that important information. A key criticism I have is that the designs themselves are not guided in any way – I had never heard of royal icing before attempting to make these myself, so I had to YouTube how to create the icing in order to have any success at all.

An important note on my attempt to bake, as a coeliac I was forced to switch out normal flour for gluten free flour, which affected the ability for the cookie dough to form properly (which was rectified with milk – which is not suggested in the recipe). The basic vanilla sugar cookie recipe is not too cumbersome, however it does take a few hours in the fridge. The royal icing recipe itself was not too disastrous however, as a novice cookie-maker, I did step back and use pre-prepared writing icing on my attempt at the Never Let Me Go cassette tape.

All-in-all, I had a ball getting covered in flour and attempting to make whale and star shapes out of the dough. I had less fun icing them and I can say I am definitely no master-cookie-maker however, the end-result was delicious and enjoyed by my family.

Whimsical is how I would describe this book – and whilst a baker with more experience may find this book a wonderful inspiration, beginners will struggle to connect the recipes with the final product without any further research and solid guidance. I had a fun time playing with this book, but it was certainly a lot of effort in the end for cookies I could have simply dolloped the icing on and enjoyed much more quickly.

Reviewed by Zoe Butler
Twitter: @Zoe_Rambles

Distributed by: Simon & Schuster
Released: November 2018
RRP: $24.99

More News

To Top