Chetna's easy baking With a twist of spice

Makan, alum of the Great British Bake Off, leads with seasonal ingredients featuring tropical touches and textural contrasts in this savvy inventory of easy-to-execute recipes that cover savories as well as sweets, with vegan options. Seemingly serendipitous ingredient combinations include caramel laced with star anise in a pear, chocolate, and hazelnut tarte tatin, or a tiramisu flavored with rosewater in addition to the typical instant espresso. Plenty of playful options include the Banoffee Chocolate Pavlova, a deconstructed twist on the Banoffee pie, which uses a pavlova as the base instead of a butter biscuit. A black tahini tart is perhaps the signature bake of the book with its inky-black filling of sesame paste sweetened with honey. Indian-influenced savory options include a fresh-take assortment of pies, pizzas, and pasties. Paneer is added to cheddar cheese scones, yogurt to the dough for a "Chilli naan" pizza (topped with chutney), and fenugreek to the crust of a curried chickpea cauliflower pie. While the collection is put together with simplicity in mind, the results are alluring for both the eye and the palate. Beginners and experienced bakers alike will feel a thrill of anticipation browsing these recipes, which perfectly combine the promise of familiarity and adventurousness. (Sept.)

After writing multiple popular cookbooks featuring Indian home-cooking, Great British Bake Off contestant Makan (Chetna's 30-Minute Indian: Quick and Easy Everyday Meals) returns to baking with her latest, which highlights sweet and savory recipes that often have creative flavor twists. Several of the desserts feature fruits and vegetables, while others offer unique takes on classics, such as masala-chai tres leches cake and sticky toffee pudding with cardamom. The savory options are especially tempting and include Indian-influenced recipes for bread, rolls, and pies like chana dal--stuffed yogurt bread and mattar paneer pie. A full chapter on vegan bakes also features both the sweet and the savory. There are small treats such as anise doughnuts and black-tahini-and-cream-cheese cookies, followed by recipes for sauces, jams, and chutneys. The recipes are enhanced throughout with beautiful photos. While the instructions are straightforward, the book is clearly aimed at a British audience, and bakers in the U.S. might find that some of the ingredients are difficult to obtain. VERDICT Anyone well versed in British terms and ingredients and equipped with traybake tins will find this another appealing offering from Makan.--Melissa DeWild