Kapoor is accustomed to churning out cookbooks (this is his 12th) but he is full of beans as he talks about his latest. “It took me extensive research over one year to get Cakes & Bakes ready. I sought feedback from a lot of people, especially my television viewers. I tested and tasted all my recipes. It was a lot of work,” he explains.

To begin with, the economics of writing a cookbook has to be kept in mind. The businessman in Kapoor says, “There has to be a method to creativity. You have to know how much you have to give to the reader in a book that is priced at Rs 295. That also determines the number of food pictures that go into a book, or whether it has to be in full colour.” Writing recipe for others is a tricky job and nothing can be left to approximation. “One has to be meticulous. You can’t leave anything to chance. A reader may just interpret something wrongly and it goes for a toss,” he says.

Indeed, it is easy for the cake to collapse if one is not thorough enough. Kapoor learnt his lesson in caution recently when he drew flak after his signature restaurant, Yellow Chilli, in New Delhi was found to be sub-standard. He admits that it was an erroneous venture. “Restaurants are very difficult to manage especially when they are based on the franchise model. When owners are not particular about quality, things go out of hand. But I still maintain that if I offer a recipe and someone else doesn’t cook the dish right, am I to be blamed?,” he quips.