Cakes & Pastries by Tarla Dalal is a practical baking and cake-decoration cookbook focused on creating and presenting a variety of cakes, pastries, sponges, and decorated desserts. The book provides step-by-step guidance, particularly for decorating cakes and pastries using ready-made sponges, while also including basic sponge recipes for readers who prefer to bake from scratch.

The book features recipes and decorating ideas for classics such as Black Forest Cake, Chocolate Coffee Cake, and Peach Praline Gateau, with sequential instructions and accompanying photographs to help readers reproduce the designs.