Norrathian Baking 201

Baking 201: Advanced Baking — Pies & Chocolates

Isn't it amazing how much fun it is to hand someone a Wolf Sandwich and know that the only way they can get such a thing is if someone takes the time to make it for them?

If you've gotten this far, I'm operating under the assumption that you know where to buy the various standard Baking ingredients (flour, frosting, garnish, jugs of sauces, milk, spices and vinegar) and have gotten to the point where making various rolls (Fish, Gator and Shark Rolls) will no longer increase your skill. In order to increase your skill now, it's time to make pies, chocolate cookies and muffins, and cakes.

For the advanced recipes, and some others of lower level skill, you'll need utensils. These utensils can be made either with the Blacksmithing or Pottery skill. If you're already an accomplished Smith, you'll just need a little skill in Pottery for Ceramic Linings. If you don't have any Smithing skill, I recommend taking a little bit to boost up your Pottery skill. It's cheaper and faster than Smithing by a long shot, though you will need a bare minimum of Smithing ability to make Metal Bits. Of course, you can always try to find someone else who already has these skills to make your utensils for you, too. In order to pursue your Baking to the sweetest delight of the craft, the Wedding Cake, you'll need to have at least a Pie Tin and a Cake Round. I also recommend having a Muffin Tin. The range of available baking utensils is: Animal Shaped Cookie Cutter; Barbarian Shaped Cookie Cutter; Bread Tin (the only one that must be Smithed); Cake Round; Gnome Shaped Cookie Cutter; Muffin Tin; Pie Tin; Pot; Skewers; Smoker; Troll Shaped Cookie Cutter. These items must be made by a player character. Pots and Skewers are often made by Smiths practicing their craft, and can often be found on merchants. Unless you're making a quest recipe, the utensil is returned to you whether you succeed or fail to make the food.

However you got them, you now have a Pie Tin and a Cake Round. But in order to make any of the things that use these utensils, you also have to have Clumps of Dough. And to make dough, you need a Mixing Bowl. This essential tool for the serious baker can either be made via Pottery, or bought from a merchant. In the Mixing Bowl, combine one egg, milk and flour. Any egg. Different eggs yield different amounts of dough, with snake eggs (the easiest to get) giving you 1 Clump of Dough, to basilisk eggs looted from the dead corpses of those critters getting you 15 Clumps of Dough in one shot! The basilisks in Lavastorm are your best source, and they're level 11-14, so most folk who want to do Advanced Baking (anything after skill 135) should be able to handle them.

Now for pies, you need dough, a pie tin and one of the following: Chunk of Meat, Vegetables, Fruit, Berries, or Rat Ears (not Giant). You can also make Fire Beetle Eye Pie with dough, your pie tin, a Fire Beetle Eye and Spices. Unless you can forage or can get foraged foods relatively easily, the easiest pie to make is Meat Pie, from Chunks of Meat. You can often find the chunks on merchants, or loot them from bears, gators, lions, mammoths, plains cats, pumas, rats, wolves, and I'm sure lots of other creatures.

Once you've reached the point where pies will no longer advance your skill (142), it's time for the really hard stuff - chocolate treats! There are two kinds of chocolate: Winter Chocolate, like semi-sweet baker's chocolate; and White Chocolate. With both types, you can make cookies, muffins and cakes…but it takes White Chocolate to make the Wedding Cake. In order to make chocolate, you need Brownie Parts. Yes, that's right, you need to find and slaughter those hostile little scamps for their wee parts in order to make serious treats. There's Nilipus in Rivervale, and I'm sure the halflings there would be happy if you would make an effort to exterminate him and keep their Jum-Jum safe. There are some very low-level Brownie Scouts in the Greater Faydark, usually to be found in the vicinity of the pass to Butcherblock, ranging towards Kelethin. And then there's the mecca of Brownies, the Lesser Faydark, which is not to be attempted by the faint-of-heart (or low-of-level), as the various brownies in there can give you a serious hurtin'. (They can be as hard as up to level 52 or so.) The drop rate on Brownie Parts is...erratic. Some brownies seem to drop parts every time, others more rarely. Your best bet is probably to go to the Lesser Faydark and beg them off characters who are killing the various Brownies for experience or quests. You might be able to find some on merchants in the Lesser Faydark Ranger camp, or in Rivervale, if someone happened to sell them. Failing that, a Ranger or 20+ level Druid can track the Brownie Scouts in the Greater Faydark. Trying to get them from Nillipus in Rivervale is a bad idea, due to his long re-spawn time and the infrequent drop of parts.

However you manage to acquire them, once you have Brownie Parts, you have to decide if you're going to make Winter or White Chocolate. Winter Chocolate is made in the Mixing Bowl by combining one Brownie Parts with two (separate) Frostings. For White Chocolate, add Spices to that mixture. Once you have chocolate, of either variety, you can make cookies by combining the chocolate, Frosting, Spices and a Clump of Dough in your handy-dandy Spit (or an Oven, if you ditched your Spit because you needed a container that could carry more), or you can have chocolate fruit-filled muffins by combining a Muffin Tin, Fruit (foraged), dough and chocolate. Birthday Cake is dough, Winter Chocolate, Frosting and a Cake Round. But the ultimate Baked delight, Wedding Cake, is White Chocolate, Frosting, dough and your Cake Round. If you pig out on the whole cake yourself, it's a meal, or you can slice the cakes by putting them by themselves into an oven or spit to get 10 snack-sized slices.

There are over six dozen known recipes, and I have faith there are many more to be discovered. Explore and enjoy the "fruits" of your labors!

— Isolde Pagani, High Elven Enchantress, Quellious