By day, Sara Cochran navigates the rigid world of Excel spreadsheets and nonprofit budgeting. But in her Williamsburg kitchen, the data gives way to “cozy fantasy” and edible art. Under the moniker “Sara’s Bookish Macarons,” Cochran has turned a notoriously finicky French pastry into a canvas for her favorite novels, amassing a following of thousands on #BookTok along the way.
Cochran, who lives in Williamsburg, started making macarons a few years ago, while she was living in Washington, D.C. and attending Georgetown University. At the time, she lived near a bakery and enjoyed macarons as a special treat. However, they were too expensive to buy regularly. Seeking a more sustainable habit, she decided one day that she wanted to learn how to make them herself.
It wasn’t until the the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic that she discovered #BookTok — a community of book lovers — and realized she could combine her two passions: macarons and books. At the time, Cochran, a longtime book lover, favoring cozy fantasy and sci-fi as well as the occasional romance novel, was in a book club at the time that was reading “Legendborn” by Tracy Deonn. The cover of the contemporary fantasy novel inspired her to create red and blue macarons.
Though she described her initial designs as “super simple,” in March 2022, she posted a video of her creations on social media and relished the positive feedback she got from other #BookTokers. She went on to watch YouTube tutorials to learn and improve her technique. She expanded into other book franchises and fandoms, including “Twilight,” the “Percy Jackson” series and the works of Jane Austen, among others.
“I am not necessarily the best at giving the most detailed book reviews, so this was my way of contributing to that bookish community,” she said. “And I had a lot of fun with it.”
Now, it’s an ongoing hobby. Under the handle @sarasbookishmacarons, Cochran has cultivated a cross-platform following of more than 13,000 followers; on TikTok alone, her videos have gotten more than 250,000 likes.
Macarons are notoriously difficult to make as they require extreme precision. One particularly finicky factor is humidity, said Cochran.
“You can be the best baker in the world, but if it’s too humid and you’re doing the French method in particular, where you have to let them rest and dry? Some days, you just have to be like, ‘Is the weather good enough to make macarons?’” she said.
Even so, she had beginner’s luck with her first batch.
“They’re not up to my standards today, but they were perfect circles,” she said. “Now, looking back, I’m like, ‘Oh, they were a little lopsided in some parts, but they actually looked like macarons.’ A lot of people, when they first start baking them, they look nothing like them.”
Admittedly, she said, “I got a little too cocky, and the next couple batches were not good. But honestly, it took maybe four or five batches before I really got the hang of it.”
Always one for a challenge, Cochran once decided to bake a pumpkin pie from scratch — not by opening a can of filling, but by processing an actual pumpkin.
“I got that idea in my head, and I wouldn’t let it go until I did it,” she said.
To create a batch of her “bookish macarons,” Cochran will take notes as she reads a book, and sometimes, she’ll sketch out her ideas on a small circle in her sketchbook.
“They are a lot of work to bake, so I want to make sure — I’m like, ‘Can I actually recreate this or do this on a two-inch surface area?’” she said.
Not every book is equally macaron-able, though. If the story does not have distinctive or vivid imagery, even if Cochran really enjoyed it, it can be harder to come up with an idea to create macarons from it.
“Cozy fantasies, I try to do macarons for, because they’re really easy to do, and they’re always fun, and they’re usually colorful and bright and have cute little critters on them, whereas sometimes, some of the darker epic fantasies or dystopian novels don’t translate as well in like cookie form. I do still try to do them sometimes, but I had an author reach out to me once who wrote dark romance. I was like, A, I don’t really read dark romance, and B, I don’t know what that would look like on a little cookie!” she laughed.
When she does create a batch, though, she creates the two-dimensional designs with edible pens and markers, plus gel food coloring mixed with white edible food coloring powder.
Out of all of the book-inspired macaron batches she’s ever made, Cochran said her “Lord of the Rings”-inspired batch — which she made as a birthday gift for herself in 2024 — is her favorite. The batch included a a mix of two-dimensional designs, like Gandalf’s hat and the Tower of Isengard, as well as three-dimensional ones, such as the door to a Hobbit house and the sword Narsil. Cochran said she likes the variety and sees it as a way of paying her respects to late author J.R.R. Tolkien, whose works have had a lasting influence on the fantasy genre. Those particular macarons are also featured in her three most popular TikTok videos, which as of this writing, have more than 334,000 views combined.
Despite her deep passion for making book-inspired macarons, Cochran’s day-to-day looks quite different: she works in global health finance, budgeting for a nonprofit.
“Most of my day is in Excel spreadsheets or responding to Outlook emails, that sort of thing, so it’s not artistic or creative. This is very much my creative outlet,” she said.
In fact, Cochran doesn’t sell her macarons commercially at all. She is open to commissions from book authors, publishers and booksellers looking to promote work. Occasionally, though, she will participate in charity giveaways in which people can submit proof that they’ve donated to a particular nonprofit to be entered into a drawing to win macarons.
Last July, she made a batch of macarons based on Northampton author Emily Everett’s debut novel “All That Life Can Afford.” The book is a contemporary retelling of “Pride and Prejudice” based on Everett’s experiences growing up working-class on a farm, idealizing Britain because of Jane Austen’s novels, moving to London for graduate school and working as a tutor for wealthy families. Cochran used the cover art’s color scheme of blue and yellow, and iconic London imagery like Big Ben and a red telephone booth, as well as names and images specific to the book.
Cochran also teaches macaron-making workshops at High Five Books in Florence every so often. She has aspirations to host one in the fall in which she teaches people how to make what she calls “the enchanted forest macarons,” which feature accoutrements like mushrooms and moss.
“I would love to show people how to do those, because those, I think, are fairly low-effort, high-reward,” she said. “You don’t need to be a skilled painter or anything. You just need patience. But it’s so cool, because it’s just a little M&M and a little bit of fondant, and you’re using royal icing instead of glue. It’s arts and crafts, but with baked goods. It’s so fun.”
Of course, for Cochran, the fun in making macarons goes beyond that. For Cochran, what books and macarons have in common is how much they make people happy.
“When you’re baking for somebody, you put a little bit of love and magic into it,” Cochran said. “And making something for somebody else to bring them joy, whether it’s a sweet treat or whether it’s a short story or a poem … there is, I think, some overlap in authors who pour their hearts and souls into the page to give out to the world and bakers who pour their hearts and souls into their baked goods to give them out.”
For more information on Sara Cochran’s work, visit @sarasbookishmacarons on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Authors looking to collaborate with her should email sarasbookishmacarons@gmail.com.
