Chetna Makan - Chetnas Easy Baking: with a twist of spice

I started baking young, but my clearest early memory of it is from when I was about 12 years old, the same age as my daughter is now, making my papas birthday cake. It was just a simple vanilla sponge, but I had a torrid time trying to get the royal icing to set, not knowing what I was doing wrong or why it wouldn't harden up. I desperately wanted it to look amazing, as we were having a birthday party for papa.

Regardless of how the icing looked in the end and I suspect it wasnt great the cake was a success. Not because I mastered the royal icing, but because everyone gathered round and ate and smiled and celebrated together. That is the best thing about baking: creating something that will make your favourite people happy and give you the joy of sharing it. (I have since mastered royal icing, but youll be relieved to know it doesnt appear in this book.) But that early experience also taught me something important: me and complicated bakes just dont go together.

I have always had a sweet tooth, inherited from my parents along with my love for all food. Growing up, I was surrounded by amazing Indian sweets, but I was lucky that my mum had a tiny round portable oven, something she still owns, just big enough to bake a cake (though its dimensions restricted the size of cake tin we could use). She was the only person we knew who owned an oven of a curious kind I have never seen since and she had a special love for baking cakes. Sometimes she would plug the oven in to bake in her room, sometimes in my room, and sometimes the oven would sit in the corridor, wafting out that distinctive cake-baking fragrance and making the whole house smell amazing. Her love of baking was passed directly to me. (My mums famous date cake, which I featured in my very first book, remains the talk of her town. She still makes an e -free version for her vegan friends.)

We had no cookbooks or internet to learn recipes or baking techniques from at the time, but there were cooking shows on telly and my mum would sit in front of those, taking notes. She also took a cookery course one summer in a ladys home, where she learned to make some cakes and ice creams. She still has those TV and cookery-course notebooks and I used them when I was learning to bake.

I want you to pick up this book and feel the confidence that you can do it, too.

I started baking in my early teens and took it upon myself to bake birthday cakes for all five of us at home. They were not fancy multi-layered affairs, just simple sponges, sometimes with food colouring and sometimes with flavouring extracts added. I remember making a marble cake for the first time with half vanilla and half pink cake batter and being very pleased with the result!

Throughout my baking life, one thing that has remained consistent is that love of simplicity. I have always preferred easy, rustic-looking food to pristine, too-pretty-to-eat bakes. There is something so warming and heartening about them, a quality that makes you enjoy eating them even more.

So that is the idea behind this, my sixth book. My very first book focused on baking and this is the only time I have revisited the subject since. And the reason why Ive returned to baking is as simple as the bakes I love. Like all of us, I have spent a few months at home during the COVID-19 lockdowns, in my case watching my kids grow into teens and develop their love of food and cooking. My daughter Sia loves baking; if she can find the kitchen free (which doesnt happen often as I am always in there), she will be baking like a shot. She goes to my bookshelf, picks up a book, finds a recipe she wants to try and bakes it there and then.

Watching her do that made me want to write a baking book to inspire the young, the old and everyone in between, I want you to pick up this book and feel the confidence that you can do it, too.

Whether thats cooking up a glut of pears from your garden into a tarte Tatin spiced with star anise and studded with chocolate, creating an indulgent Masala Chai Tres Leches bake for a family occasion, or knocking up Potato Curry Puffs for a lunch youll return to again and again, everyone can get involved with these recipes. Ive made sure to include a whole bunch of vegan-friendly bakes, too: try a cheesecake with a regal hint of saffron, tasty Peanut Masala Tear and Share Rolls to bring to a picnic, or simply the best chocolate cookies for a plant-based diet, lifted with cardamom and pistachios.

That is the best thing about baking: creating something that will make your favourite people happy and give you the joy of sharing it.

The inspiration for every bake in this book comes from my own kitchen. These are recipes that I have been meaning to share for some time now, all simple bakes, with an added hint of spices from my Indian heritage. My hope is that this book is something you will keep for years to come, to inspire your children and who knows? perhaps your parents, too, to bring sweetness and joy into all your lives.

In this book, you will find a collection of simple sweet and savoury recipes, with ingredients that are easy to find, but which all contain something new to make your bakes sing and shine. That could be a spice you might not expect, a fusion of global influences that were just born to be together (Black Tahini Cheesecake Cookies, anyone?), or a twist on a classic, such as a drizzle cake dazzling with mango and ginger.

Most importantly, though, is that special ingredient that only you can bring to my book: that bit of love which you add to make every bake special.

Happy baking!

My hope is that this book is something you will keep for years to come, to inspire your children and who knows? perhaps your parents, too, to bring sweetness and joy into all your lives.

As a mango lover, I want to make the most of mango season by not just eating as many mangoes as possible, but also baking with them. In this bundt cake, the flavours are very balanced and there is no one frontrunner. A variation of lemon drizzle cake, the sponge has lime and ginger running through it, while the mango gin syrup and icing gives a subtle mango zing. You can make this with mango juice instead of mango gin if you like, but if you like your gin, this is a must-try!