Unfortunately this is not possible with the bake functionality. The Houdini Engine for Maya plugin does not animate transforms. Instead, it animates the points of the objects directly. Because of this, a traditional transform animation bake will not yield the correct results. Instead, what you need to do is the following:
- Select the object that you wish to bake
- Go to Cache>Geometry Cache>Create New Cache>Option Box. Enter your settings, then click Create.
- Select the Houdini asset node, and click Bake.
- In the Outliner there will now be a copy of your object at the root of the scene. Select it, and go to Cache>Geometry Cache>Import Cache and select the cache that you created in step 2.
Your object will now be completely removed from Houdini while retaining the animation.