From Paper to Production: Biscuiteers x Emma Bridgewater Advent Collection

This Christmas we’ve chosen to start the season off in the very best way, by collaborating with Emma Bridgewater to bring to life in biscuit form a much loved Christmas tradition, Advent!

This enchanting new collection is designed to make the countdown to Christmas as magical as the day itself, with 24 hand-iced biscuits that fit perfectly into the pockets of our Emma Bridgewater patchwork Advent calendar.

To mark this special launch, we spoke to our Senior Biscuit Designer, Rachael, who shared the story behind the creation of the collection.
What inspired the Advent biscuit designs?
Initially I was inspired by the story ‘The Polar Express’. The magical moments and the sense of adventure on Christmas Eve fed into a cosy wintery festive feel which helped kick off the creative process. The ‘Night Before Christmas’ materialised from this and then I started to introduce more specific designs related to this concept.

For example, the final two layers of biscuits in the tin are designed to capture the excitement of the Christmas Eve finale in the story. The arrival in the North Pole to finally meet Santa in his magnificent sleigh, with the massive sparkling Christmas tree and abundance of presents are all represented in the biscuit designs.
The Advent tin is always a fun tin to create as the designs are new each year based to our chosen theme

What was the collaborative process like with Emma Bridgewater?
When we received the Emma Bridgewater calendar we used this for inspiration during the design process. I matched the Advent biscuit colour palette to the calendar fabric colours, the pale blue was particularly prominent so a light blue icing features throughout the designs, alongside the classic red and gold. The little nighttime village scene at the top of the calendar gave inspiration for the Scandi style houses, the stars and decorated Christmas tree you’ll find in the tin. The embroidered motifs on the pockets also appear in the illustration on the biscuit tin, such as the shooting star and stocking.

What does the biscuit design process look like?
The process started as a few rough sketches and a list of different design ideas. 24 biscuits are a lot more than our usual luxe tin so it required a lot of thought as to what each design would be and how they’d all fit!

I find it helpful to have a colour palette first to check the designs are suited to these shades and that it creates the right mood.

I design in stages of how they would be iced, firstly working out the biscuit shapes and how the outline would be iced on top, then what colours to flood so there is an even distribution and a balance throughout. For example, the soft green works well for the pjs and is used as an accent tone down the brighter colours and the red is very eye-catching and screams ‘Christmas’, so we used this on all the traditional designs like Santa’s hat, his sleigh, and the bauble.

My favourite part is the final detail phase as I can really get involved in all the small additions to make them exactly how I visualised. I can choose a variety of detailing techniques to create textures and different appearances, all which add to the hand-iced charm.

And there you have it, the story behind our brand new 2023 Advent Collection! Countdown to Christmas in style and shop the limited edition collection now.