To the uninitiated, baking and cooking can be a mystifying and intimidating exercise.

It needn’t be so, especially if you consult the My Cooking Class series, published by Firefly Books.

Taking an innovative approach, these books present recipes in complete visual sequences, with every ingredient shown in the correct quantity and in the exact order in which it will be used.

If you faithfully follow the instructions, you’ll learn to be a baker or a cook in no time at all.

The latest batch of books from My Cooking Class will not only teach neophytes the essentials, but will help seasoned hands upgrade their skills.

Cake Basics, by Abi Fawcett, teaches you the fundamentals of baking, telling you how to whip up simple cakes, layer cakes, loaf cakes, chocolate cakes and cheesecakes.

Pick and choose from 70 recipes, running the gamut from a butter cake and a classic fruit cake to a lemon and poppyseed cake to a coconut and rum cheese cake.

These recipes shmeck.

Indian Basics, by Jody Vassallo, contains 85 mouth-watering recipes for soups and snacks, dals and vegetables, meat, chicken and fish, breads and rice, chutneys, pickles and salads and desserts and drinks.

Vassallo lists 32 spices integral to Indian cuisine, from black onion seeds and green cardamom pods to white cloves and ground coriander.

Once you’re ready to cook up a storm, you can make, for example, garlic ginger eggplant, lamb korma, saffron rice, vegetable pilaf, Goan fish and vermicelli pudding.

Preserving Basics, by the same author, is a primer on making homemade preserves such as jams, jellies, marmalades, mustards, chutneys and relishes.

Preserving fruits and vegetables in the form of jam and other preserves is an art that can be mastered, and in this volume, you’ll learn how to make such delicacies as raspberry and lavender jam, pineapple and peppercorn jam, rhubarb and strawberry jam, pomegranate jelly, grapefruit marmalade, garlic and parsley mustard and fig, pear and pepper chutney.

Serve these preserves and impress your guests.