The Great British Bake Off Has Become A Cookbook Machine

Judges, winners and runners up churn out a steady stream of books

I follow a lot of the contestants from the Great British Bake Off on social media. It’s fascinating to see what happens to the bakers after their season is over. While some of them go back to their original jobs, many segue into broadcast productions and especially cookbooks.

This summer, Chetna Makan, who appeared in Series 5 of the show, published her latest cookbook. (For American viewers, Series 5 is equivalent to our Season 3, which was the first one broadcast on PBS. We have never seen the first two seasons of Bake Off, which only aired in Britain.)

Chetna’s season aired in 2014, and in the 10 years since, she has become a prolific writer and YouTube presence. Her newest book is Easy Indian Vegetarian, which is on sale in the U.K. and arrives in the U.S. on Sept. 3. You can pre-order it here.

This is her eighth cookbook; previous titles have focused on street food, 30 minute meals and she’s written two baking books.

Chetna’s productivity is right in line with a British publishing tradition of a constant stream of cookbooks from judges, winners and runners up from GBBO.