Baking shadows; i.e. ambient occlusion, is indeed included in Blender, using the Render Editor. However, there are certain modeling limitations in order to create the 'shadows' properly. Since 'ambient occlusion' in Blender will put a shadow on ANY surface included in the process, objects must be baked in a per face, or per view basis, and modeled without overlapping faces. Thus, even the back of objects must be deleted from the model, as the front, 'showing' face, will cast a shadow on the back face, distorting the effect greatly.
In a recent project I had to accurately model a large louvered panel for a building, the panel was modeled in Blender as a 3D structure and 'ambient occlusion' was baked on. I then exported an 'image' of the item, 'painted' it in PSP, then applied the 2D image to the building as a 3D louver. The affect was quite satisfactory.