Baking lights--the oven light

We are working on a game that takes place at night. And I'm told there's this thing you should do, when you work on a game, which is to bake things (which reminds me: my oven light is dead...). Not all the things... just certain things. Like lights. And not all the lights, just the ones you want to crystallize into your scene.

From my limited understanding this means: take your raw light (in our case: the runny yolk of moonlight), whip it up with melted butter, and honey—because don't all these things remind you of light? delicious light.

Okay. Seriously. From my limited understanding, baking light has nothing to do with food (I'm lying). Its about "freezing" the lights in your scene into place (but with a warmer metaphor, because: light). Why? Because light is energy. It flickers. It needs to be crystallized at the right moment. Wait, wait. Whats all this got to do with baking, and my dead oven light?

Who bakes the lights? Me. In other words, I'm in the middle of the end of production, and baking lights can take hours I'm told. Just like baking in the real world, and what is all this designed to remind me of?  Pastries. So... while I let Unity bake my lights, I'll take a walk to the the bakery, and buy some streusle—or more likely, I'll walk to the fridge... or even more likely, I'll think of eating, and keep working, which is why I clearly need the language of this thing I'm working on to remind me of my actual needs.