Hey folks. I finally earned my Master Crafter title, so I thought I'd post up some guides on how I got there. Next up, Cooking!
Things have changed a bit in cooking, now that some of the most-needed ingredients are no longer available from Karma vendors, but not all is lost! You can still make your way through culinary school without spending all your time and money!
*Note: Cooking is the fun profession. With the other crafts, you'll enter the discovery pane and experience very few surprises (with the possible exception of Artifice and potion-making). Cooking, however, offers a wealth of possible recipes and can be much more emotionally rewarding than any of the other crafts. If you want to have fun with the craft, I would advise against using this or any other guide, as much of that experience will be bled out of the process. This, however, will give you a relatively inexpensive way to hit 400--where you can still experiment with your ingredients.
*Additional Note: The Master Chef will warn you that cooking will cost you coin and karma. The Chef does not warn you that this will take a LOT of bag space. Now you are warned.
Step One: Farm! You'll notice a pattern, here. Your best bet in leveling any craft with little cost is going to start in a frak-ton of farming. In the case of cooking, it's a little lighter than others. Most of the ingredients that you'll be using will be simple ones that you can either by for 8 cp a piece from the Chef trainer or even less expensively from the Trade Post--this is because they are the default-find-it-everywhere-you-go stuff. You'll want about the following of each ingredient for this entire process, either by farming in the (F)ield, killing (M)obs, buying cheaply off the (T)rading Post, buying from the (C)hef with coin or (K)arma, or by completing a Heart quest and purchasing it from the agent (as described below):
225 Butter (M/T). 200 Flour (C), Sugar (C). 100 Water (C). 75 Chocolate Bar (M/T), Cherry (*), Orange (T/M), Peach (*). 50 Egg (M/T), Chili Pepper (M/T), Buttermilk (K), Raspberry (F/T), Eggplant (*). 25 Vanilla Bean (F/M/T), Vinegar (K), Starch (K), Onion (F/T), Garlic (F/T), Ginger Root (K), Green Onion (F/T), Lemon (F/M/T), Black Peppercorn (F/T).
Of the above, you will be able to make a few choices on what to leave out. If you have Peppercorn and Eggplant, for example, you won't need any Raspberry. If you have don't have Chili Pepper, you just need a few more Cherry. And, at any time, you can probably do a few other discoveries or make more than 25 of some of these items and skip one step. For the most part, the numbers above are slightly more than the maximum that you'd need for this guide.
You will need to complete three heart quests:
1) Nightguard Beach in Harathi Hinterlands to unlock Cherries. (Nightguard Waypoint)
2) South of Mabon Market in Caledon Forest to unlock Lemons. (Weeping Isle)
3) Far to the Southeast in Mount Maelstrom to unlock Eggplant. (Jenrys @ Judgement Rock)
Step Two: Make ALL the things!
Each of these steps are designed to net you 25 Chef levels. It will probably take less than 25 of each of these items. I think I averaged at about 21, but the food will generally not go to waste and often turns into something better. I will italicize any ingredient that you are using from previously concoted things.
Tier 1
75 Balls of Dough, (Water, Flour, Butter)
25 Balls of Cookie Dough, (Butter, Flour, Egg, Sugar)
25 Bowls of Roux (Flour, Butter)
Tier 2
25 Bowls of White Frosting (Butter, Vanilla, Water, Sugar)
Here is your first choice: You can either make more Roux (cheap) or Frosting (useful) until you hit 120 and then play around with other ingredients to get 5 more points (to 125). You can also make Paprika (Bell Pepper + Chili Pepper) from 100-125 which makes good items later and wastes fewer materials, but is much harder to make, given the Karma and farming, and you will not use any further in this guide. It does sell well on the TP, though. I went with Frosting and random discoveries. Yum! Once you are at Chef level 125, continue with...
25 Bowls of Chocolate Frosting (Bowl of White Frosting, Chocolate Bar)
Tier 3
25 Chocolate Cherries (Cherry, Chocolate Bar)
Here is your second choice: To make this easier on yourself later, you'll want to make 25 Piles of Stirfry Spice Mix (Onion, Garlic, Ginger Root, Chili Pepper). Ginger Root is sold in town by random Karma vendors, but Chili Pepper is harder to come by. It is more expensive on the Trade Post and hard to find in the field. If you make this now, you'll have a much easier time around level 325. If you can't make this now, you can make Cherry Tarts (Cherry, Butter, Sugar, Ball of Dough), but then you'll need to farm up Raspberries later--and those are even harder to get a hold of than Chili Peppers. Make 25 of either to bring yourself to 200.
25 Bowls of Cherry Chocolate Frosting (Cherry, Bowl of Chocolate Frosting)
Tier 4
25 Chocolate Oranges (Orange, Chocolate Bar)
25 Jars of Orange Sauce (Orange, Starch, Sugar, Vinegar)
25 Jars of Citrus Cream Sauce (Bowl of Roux, Orange, Lemon, Buttermilk)
Tier 5
25 Peach Cookie (Ball of Cookie Dough, Peach)
Here is your last option. If you made the Pile of Stirfry Spice Mix, you can make 25 Bowls of Eggplant Stirfry (Soy Sauce, Pile of Stirfry Spice Mix, Green Onion, Eggplant) from doing the heart quest. If you have not yet gotten the Chili Peppers to make the mix, you'll need to make 25 Rasperry Peach Compote (Sugar, Peach, Raspberry). This makes some nice desserts, but I found Raspberry to be much harder to deal with. After you hit Chef level 350, it is on to...
25 Peach Tart (Peach, Sugar, Ball of Dough, Butter) -- yep, you never leave butter!
Home Stretch
25 Bowl of Peach Pie Filling (Peach, Flour, Butter, Sugar)
You'll hit 400 well before making 25 of these, but you can combine the filling with more Balls of Dough to make Peach Pies which give you Vitality and Regeneration and taste awesome! From here, you can explore other handy recipes.
Happy Cooking!
