Baking AU

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Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genresAlternate Universe, Bakery AU, Chef AU, Coffee Shop AU, College AU, Curtainfic, GBBO AU
See alsoFood in Fanworks
Related articles on Fanlore.

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.[1]

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

Bandom

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Inception

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

Radio One RPF

Fanart by chkc related to Foster's Bakery

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

The Social Network

External links

References

  1. ^ hannahrhen. "Bostock". Archived from the original on 2021-01-18.