I showed up within a minute of when the item finished baking (60 mins and 35 mins) and they both burned... is it random? I know I'm not leaving it too long...

It's random it is impossible to leave it too long. You can come back days later and either it will be fine, or it won't.

YOu are punished for being higher level baker, and things burn at a higher rate the more you bake.

that's not at all what I expected :) thank you

you are welcome. It's not what they say. But since the price of ingredients for higher level stuff is pretty up there I did a few numbers and it is true. Either stuff gets harder to bake faster than your skillz do, or their random number generator is wonky.

iirc I think when you're a higher level and you bake lower level stuff, you have a much lower chance of burning it!

mmmmaybe... but why would you do this? You get much less experience, and the choke ingredients like Baking Powder that you just have to have for every single recipe justabout don't get any cheaper sP-wise. That is to say that the burn rate does go down, but not so much that the extra RL time you spend baking and the extra sP you spend baking more lower level stuff that you don't need and won't sell is worth it.