Hail and well met my friends! I am Tothis, apprentice baker and a wizard of growing reknown.  Early on in my adventuring career I decided I need to do something as a craft.  My friend Rexan was a blacksmith and Vaclav was trying his hand at basic jewelry.  I had noticed that both friends had spent a lot of money on these arts.   Then I noticed an article on Baking and thought, "Ah! A use for those bat wings and fish!" After a  long search, I managed to find a few precious Ovens on my continent:  One in Ak'anon's palace, a few in Freeport, one in Felwithe and yet another in Kaladim.  I gathered a bunch of Bat wings and Fish and (after investing a few training points in baking to get it off the ground) tried my hand at baking.  I was initially impressed.  Out of about 30 batwings and fish, I managed to create an amazing 7 fish rolls! not bad.  And I had brought my skill up to an 8.   I practiced with this seemingly simple recipe (and candied spider legs. MMmm Still a favorite of mine) until I had reached a skill of about 20.  Then I noticed an odd trend.   My successes came less and less frequently.  By the time I had reached a skill of 35 I couldn't make even 1 fish roll out of 47 tries.  I made a petition and have since noticed that at least the candied spider leg recipe is a bit more realistically possible.  The  GM said my information had been noted and passed on.  I can only hope for the best.

Why would you WANT to learn baking? Good question.  If you have to ask, don't.  Do something else.  I did it for no better reason than I thought it would be interesting and unique.  I have YET to hear of even one other person who bakes.  It's not Macho like tailoring (you have to beat up wolves and pumas and bears... sounds macho to me!);  it's not elegant like Jewelry (the idea of making enchanted items appeals to me though), and it's not in demand like blacksmithing (my friend earns 1pp per stud he sells!). In order to make something in pottery you need sketches, which I ONLY found in Freeport.  Too long a trip for me at this level.

What do you need to learn Baking?  I suggest the following:

A) PATIENCE. This is true of any craft skill though. But it really is important, if you aren't patient enough to fish, I wouldn't even
consider this skill.

B) An Oven. Gotta have it somewhere where you can get to.

C) Some recipes. I know of only one place on Faydwer that sells things necessary to bake, and that is outside Ak'anon. there are TONS of recipe books, each with their own specialty. More about those later on!

D) Fishing at a comparable level, at least at the beginning.

E) A rather sick sense of humor.  Only a person who finds a twisted glee in making "Bixie treats" and "Woolie spider crunchies" will persevere through the rough beginnings of this skill.

You get food.  The better your food is, the less of it you need to eat.  Fish go pretty fast, fish fillets seems to last a  bit longer, Candied spider legs a bit longer than that, etc. (Unfortunately NOTHING I've managed to cook so far has lasted anywhere near as long as rations. *sigh*).  Also, some of the basic recipes make use of things you can easily get.  Batwing crunchies are the easiest thing to make. Frosting + batwing = Batwing crunchies. This is the first and only recipe that generates the "This item is trivial for someone of your skill." message.  But these appear to be even easier than Fish Fillets to make, so it might be a good recipe to begin on!  batwings + fish = fishrolls (which, when I was able to make them, seemed to last pretty long); spider legs + frosting + Spices = Candied spider legs;  fish + spices = Fish Fillets. Also, this craft skill is relatively cheap, until you start buying smokers and Skewers and Mixing bowls that is. The books cost some dough (hee hee) but you can find a great number of recipes on-line!  In fact, AllaKhazam has some links to said sites! Finally, there doesn't seem to be that annoying "this item is too simple for your skill level" message that every other craft seems to run into.  I'm at baking 50 just from making Fish rolls, fillets and Spider legs! not bad eh?

It SEEMS like something is supposed to happen when you eat foods in certain combinations, but since I don't know HOW you would go about eating specific things at all, this is probably just atmosphere for the game.

Put 1 point in baking. You can put more in if you want, but this is a
cheap skill, why waste precious points? Next, get some recipes. "Mixxies Treats" SEEMS to be the basic guide, but I would suggest "Rohand's Sea Treats" as your first book if you start in someplace where Firebeatles are unknown.  Rohand's will tell you how to make Fish Fillets.  "Mixxies Vol. I" should probably follow as it tells you how to make Candied Spider legs and (ack!) edible goo.  Collect a bunch of batwings and do a lot of fishing. The
nice thing is that both are relatively easy (if time consuming) to get. I'd suggest working in lots of 20 each.  Fish rolls are tough, so don't expect to make a lot of them.  If you have the money and can get Jugs of Spices (with a 70 cha cost me 1s 3c) then Fish fillets are the way to go. They are much easier to make and it will make you feel good actually succeeding at something.

Keep making fish rolls, batwing crunchies, candied spider legs and fish fillets until you have the money to experiment with the more expensive recipes. Hopefully there will be some work done to make this a bit more successfully. The ratios of success to failure in this skill seem to be much worse than in other skills, but at least it's cheaper. I DO believe that they will be fixing this skill in the future so the success rates are better. Once I get enough money that a 1 plat mixing bowl isn't an investment I'll tell you about Pies and cookies!