From K

K I'm Evan Klim ignorance, and light over darkness.

Hettle Besavada prepares for Devali starting with dessert.

We're going to talk about a few of her favorites from her new book, The extraordinarily joyful, Desi Bakes.

Hi.

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

I can't tell you how much fun it was to get your book look at the

cover and then open it up. The level of joy in the color palette, it just doesn't

exist in every book.

I honestly color is my thing and I really wanted

the excitement, brightness and exuberance from, you know, Divali and many other Hindu festivals to kind of like showcase in the book and I'm glad it kind of came through.

100% success.

So you have a background in biochemistry, were you immediately drawn to baking as a medium for expression in the kitchen?

Initially, no, because I had no idea there was like a connection between both baking and chemistry at all until my

organic chemistry professor had like made a side comment during class one day

saying that you know if you know how to bake you'll be fine in lab and that's when I was like, oh, if you know how to bake, you'll be fine in lab.

And that's when I was like, oh, wait, I really want to do well in lab.

So I started baking, initially from Box Cake Mix, which is how I think most people start baking.

And then once I kind of understood why each ingredient existed in the recipe

and why the technique or the method mattered.

I started just playing with the recipes and what I would make

and it just turned into a full on obsession.

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