Baking AU

A Baking AU is a trope found in fanworks in which the practice of baking holds a significant place in the personal life of one or several characters. Baking AUs sometimes overlap with Chef AUs or Bakery AUs, where baking is practiced in a professional setting, or Coffeeshop AUs which often feature baked goods as well as coffee.
For example, in gyzym's I've Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile (The Only Living Boy in New York), a stress!baker meets the owner of a coffee shop and together they create a bakery-slash-coffee shop.
A character with advanced baking skills is usually very popular among their peer group in fanfiction. Everybody wants to be their friend and the smell of the freshly baked goods alone is enough to let even the most deeply ingrained animosities melt away. So it's not really surprising that baking has become a popular trope in courtship fics, especially if the characters involved used to be antagonists.
Sometimes, the protagonist of a Baking AU-fic has no previous experience in baking at all. However, when they discover that the person they admire has a sweet tooth (the baked goods in question are almost always of the sweet variety), they go out of their way and decide to learn how to bake so they can offer their crush quality homemade cakes, pies, and cookies. The learning process is part of the character's journey.
GBBO AUs are a specific subset of Baking AUs in which the baking takes place during the British television show The Great British Bakeoff.
==Example Fanworks==
Multifandom
* (Podfic) The CLASSIFIED British Bake Off by blackglass, croissantkatie, dapatty, fire_juggler, Hananobira, kalakirya, knight_tracer, malnpudl, originally, Readbyanalise010, jelazakazone, reena_jenkins, RsCreighton, teas_me, themusecalliope, uniquepov: The following is the only episode ever filmed of season six of The Great British Bake Off. (2015)
Bandom
* Baby, It's Cold Outside by savvygambols, Brendon/Ryan: Brendon expresses his love to Ryan through the medium of special cookies. (2008)
* Buy Handmade by jjtaylor, Frank/Gerard, Podfic by pennyplainknits: Gerard Way sells his art on Etsy, Frank learns how to be a baker, featuring loving descriptions of his bakes. (2008)
* Spencer & Brendon make a cake, fanart by anna_luna. (2009)
* Nibble Clamps by jedusaur, Frank/Gerard: Frank & Gerard bake cupcakes together for a contest. (2011)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* by thecarlysutra: Buffy is baking, and Angel is worried. Buffy/Angel (2007)
Inception
* I've Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile (The Only Living Boy in New York) by gyzym, Arthur/Eames: The triple combo of a Coffeeshop/Baking/Bakery AU. (2010)
J2
* Like Sugar on my Tongue by crackedbuthappy, Jared/Jensen: Jared's mother taught Jared to bake as a child as a way to release nervous energy, to give him something to do with his hands. It’s not something he does all the time – baking – only when he’s stressed out. But, now that he’s hopelessly in love with Jensen and sharing living space....well, Jared bakes a lot. (2008)
One Direction
* 10 things i ____ about you by robpatFF, Niall/Zayn: Niall has amnesia but he remembers how to bake (2014)
Radio One RPF
* Nick/Matt GBBO not!fic by junkshop-disco (2014)
Stargate Atlantis
* Foster's Bakery by Cesare and anatsuno, McKay/Sheppard. Summary of Part 1: Grounded by an injury, John Sheppard leaves the Air Force and, at loose ends, takes up running the bakery he inherited from his mother's family in Colorado Springs. (2008)
The Avengers Movieverse
* by hannahrhen: Tony sets out a lure with almonds and powdered sugar. Loki/Tony Stark (2014)
* by STARSdidathing: Tony does not expect to smell baking upon entering the penthouse. Loki/Tony Stark (2018)
* Beautiful Chaos by STARSdidathing: When it came to bizarre business ventures for the son of a cut-throat industrialist and the adopted son of a narrow-minded, old money aristocrat, a catering business specialising in baking was very much not what anyone would have expected. Loki/Tony Stark (2018)
* Sweetly Subtle by The_Winter_Writer: It was his own brand of wooing and Bucky would really appreciate it if Natasha stopped teasing him about it. So what if he'd gone and accidentally fallen in love with the only married couple in the Tower? It was near impossible not to fall in love with Tony and Loki. Loki/Tony Stark (2018)
* Piece of Cake by NamelesslyNightlock: Tony knew that he and Loki were the perfect team, and an even better couple. They bested every opponent they faced and knew each other so well that they could move in tandem without thought. So... baking a cake should be easy, right? Loki/Tony Stark (2019)
The Social Network
* sweet on you by moogle62, Mark/Eduardo. Summary: BAKERY AU. Mark is Mark, Eduardo owns a bakery/café near the Facebook offices. [...] (2011)
==External links==
* Baking tag on ao3
* Baking AU tag on ao3
* Baking tag on FF.net
==References==