Harriet Hastings is the co-founder of Biscuiteers.com and co-author of this book. Along with Sarah Moore, she has put together a beautiful collection of iced cookies to inspire you to make your own unique gifts.

Iced cookies have long been a craze in the US, but the trend is certainly gathering momentum here in the UK. This book is a 2012 paperback edition of the successful 2010 hardback version, but contains many new designs alongside the old favourites. The book has an introduction chapter, detailing Hastings experience and the reasons she formed Biscuiteers. This is followed by an invaluable chapter of tips, tricks and recipes for everything a budding biscuiteer would want, such as biscuit dough and icing recipes, as well as icing techniques.

This is followed by three gloriously enticing chapters containing photos of delicious looking cookies for various festive and seasonal occasions. Each page details the recipe used, the colours and directions. My one and only criticism of this book is the font for these instructions is a tad small. I would have preferred it to be a couple of pitch larger.

The varied selection of biscuit recipes were an eye opener to me. I have made iced cookies many times, but always used a basic sugar cookie dough. The Biscuiteer offers 10 different varieties, including Super Chocolatey Biscuits, and Treacle Spice Biscuit, as well as a basic recipe.

The photos are one of the highlights of this book. The images are beautifully staged, showing off the bright colours, and amazing techniques to full effect. I could happily spend hours just flicking through the pages of this book never reading a word.

If you are completely new to iced cookies, a beginner or even an expert, this book offers enough inspiration for anyone to make beautiful and unique iced cookies to serve to guests or offer as gifts.

The recipes are very easy to follow, and mercifully in metric measurements, not US volume. I tried the basic biscuit recipe, and found the biscuit delicious and ever so slightly chewier and sweeter than the one I normally use. It does have a tendency to draw more moisture from the icing than my usual recipe but the flavour is superb. Should your cookies go a little soft, the Biscuiteer offers an excellent tip for returning the crunch back to your cookies, by cooking them again for a short time on a low heat to dry them out.

I received my copy of this book as a Christmas gift from my husband, as he knows that I have coveted it for a while now. The RRP is £12.99, but for that you get almost 140 pages of ideas. Add to that the tips, recipes and also several pages of templates for you to use, makes it great value.