Taking the biscuit

Little did Louise Fields and Zita Branton realise that a casual conversation on a short car journey would lead to them launching a business making iced biscuits together within the space of a few weeks.

As mothers to five boys, aged between seven and 14, they confessed they both wanted to do something more with their lives. They live in the same North Yorkshire village and decided to get together to bake, market and sell their quirky, home-made, personalised treats in a range of shapes and styles. And so The Biscuit Bakers were born.

That was just four months ago. Having invested in a specialist tool to make biscuit cutters in any shape, and transformed a spare room in one of their homes into an icing studio, demand is so great they are now making up to 400 biscuits a week, which they post out to customers all over the UK. Their tasty confections, which start at £3, are being ordered as corporate gifts, wedding favours and as an alternative to a card or small gift for birthdays and other celebrations. “You can easily spend nearly a fiver on a card that gets thrown away. We’re encouraging people to say it with a personalised biscuit instead,” says Zita.

Louise, a part-time dental hygienist, 50, and Zita, 44, who gave up her high-flying career as a buyer and training consultant for companies like Procter and Gamble to raise her family, had no experience of running their own business. The biscuits idea grew from the fact that Louise had started baking her own iced biscuits as a treat for her 14-year-old son Joseph, who suffers from a severe peanut allergy. She was inspired after a friend gave the family a gift of a tin of iced biscuits from an upmarket London-based company, which cost £43.

“They were beautiful, shaped like skis and woolly jumpers, but expensive. And because they were not nut-free, Joseph couldn’t eat them. He was more upset than usual because everybody else was eating them and he couldn’t.

“I was a rubbish baker and used to buy most of our cakes and biscuits, but I started making biscuits to provide something for Joseph. I had tried fairy cakes and they were awful. The boys used to say ‘You could kill a man with these!’ So I thought I would go with biscuits and see if I could make more of a success of them. I became a better baker.”

Louise’s biscuits were soon so popular with friends and family, she began making them as personalised gifts for special occasions, developing iced handbags and high-heeled shoes and lipstick biscuits for women and rugby shirts and rugby balls for men. So many people urged her to sell them that she booked a table at a local Christmas Fair. And when Zita mentioned that she wanted to go back to work, she asked if she would help her out.

“The fair was only a few weeks away and I had to bake about 400 biscuits. I didn’t really want to do it by myself,” says Louise.

Zita, renowned for making spectacular birthday and wedding cakes for friends, had, as the oldest girl in a family of 11 children from County Clare in Southern Ireland, been brought up doing lots of baking at home from a young age.

“We had a chat about what we were doing with our lives. My kids were older and I wanted to do something more than being at home. I needed a personality other than just being a mum.”

Louise, who has worked as a dental hygienist for 25 years, wanted a change of direction too. “Although I love my work as a dental hygienist, I only work two days a week. I had recently turned 50, and that hit me a bit hard. We were both at a funny place.”

They spent two weeks perfecting their biscuit making in preparation for the fair: “Over the weeks it just snowballed and we suddenly got really good. It was nice to be inspired again,” she says.

The success of the business, which grew largely through word-of-mouth, took them by surprise. They knew they had hit on a ready market when a number of companies got in touch to put in large orders after they received corporate presents of Biscuit Bakers gift boxes.

“It just took off, so we were up and running before we were ready. People wanted biscuits straight away, rather than wait until we had a brand in place. There was a lot of pressure, but we just loved it. It’s a bit like doing adult colouring in, so creative and enjoyable,” says Zita.

In the run-up to Christmas, every surface of Louise’s nut-free kitchen was covered in their vanilla, chocolate, spiced ginger and lemon biscuits, as they struggled to keep up with orders. “Although we started out intending to work three days a week, we were working into the evenings and weekends. We became obsessed with biscuits," she says.

It takes an hour to mix, roll, cut and bake a batch of 40. After drying them overnight, they are iced over the following few days, with each biscuit taking a few minutes each to decorate. “We have got it down to a fine art. And years of injecting people’s mouths has given me a really steady hand," says Louise.

With the help of Louise’s dentist husband Alan, the women adapted a spare room as an icing studio, installing a hard floor and stainless steel storage units. They are constantly developing new designs. “We have a huge collection of cutters but, now that we have a device to make our own, we can do whatever people want. We can do biscuits in people’s favourite colours and incorporate company logos," says Louise.

Louise and Zita believe the taste of the biscuits is just as important as the look, and they use good quality local ingredients where possible. They are also developing recipes, including a sticky toffee pudding biscuit, for people allergic to gluten. “We do want to try to help out with food intolerances because the ‘free from’ ranges in supermarkets are so limited,” says Louise.

Wrapped in cellophane, their vanilla biscuits stay fresh for four weeks and the ginger ones two months. “Some people say they can’t bear to eat them because they look so nice, but we really do want people to eat them,” says Zita. Their husbands and children enjoy being testers.

They plan to do icing and biscuit making classes in future, along with offering corporate team building courses: “We would love to expand into new premises one day, but want to be bursting out of here before we invest,” says Louise.

Friends and family couldn’t have been more supportive, they say. “Everyone is so excited that we are trying something new and creative, and seeing a whole new side to us. And we hope that, in years to come, we will be hiring other women who bake at home like us.”

W: thebiscuitbakers.co.uk

T: 07857 290475

E: thebiscuitbakers@gmail.com