The Edible Book

The Golden (Graham) Compass

This past week the class assignment was to make an edible book. It could be any book we wanted, but everything had to be edible. When I described this to friends, they were confused. They thought we had to make a book, literally. No. Instead it had to be the books likeness, or meaning. Or it could be cute and witty.

I decided to make The Golden Compass. I chose this book because while it is a children's book, I just read it over the summer and fell in love with Lyra and her compass. I figured the compass would be a perfect way to describe this book, plus I could make it a little cute by using graham crackers to make it gold.

The finished product displayed at the Edible Book Tea.

The process was simple. I used yellow cake and frosted it with white icing. Then I crushed the graham crackers into pieces and dust. I can assure you I made a mess in the kitchen trying to adhere the crackers to the icing. I only had a small window of time before the icing dried and the crackers wouldn't stick. Then I used gummy fruit snacks, such as Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, for the symbols on the compass. For anyone who has not read the books, the symbols have different meanings that Lyra can read when she falls into some type of trance. The symbols include a dagger and a bird, but Scooby and Tinkerbell had to do.

A top view of the compass

I was really impressed with what the rest of my class came up with for their books. Here are a view of my favorites.

The Game of Thrones. This was actually a playable game to make it to the throne. The dice were made out of sugar cubes. This one best in show.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets made out of bread! By Rachel Hagley

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Betsy Haugh. I was really impressed by how big this building was.

The class and the judges looking at the edible books.