In which the books are cleverly cooked? (8)
I believe the answer is:
brainpan
'in which the books are cleverly cooked?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'in which the books are' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'in' is present in the answer.
'are' could be 'a' (short for 'are', historical unit of measurement) and 'a' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for brainpan that I've seen before include "part of the head" , "bone structure" , "Headcase" , "Skull" .)