Baking in Wyoming
I'll be moving to Wyoming soon, and though I love experimenting in the kitchen, I may run through bags and bags of flour before I adjust to the altitude. Does anyone have some tips or hints for baking at high altitudes (7,200ft to be exact)? I have always lived at about 1,000ft and have no idea how high altitudes affect baked goods. Thanks!
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9 Comments:
There are a few topics that discuss this at SE. Search on "altitude." Definitely visit this site and grab a copy of the book.
therealchiffonade at 10:55PM on 04/24/09
hey there welcome to the west!( I'm in Denver- so I know baking and even just re learning cooking can be a challenge. I just had a post regarding a similar topic and the nice SE folks sent me to the books- "pie in the sky" and high altitude baking. Follow Chiff's instructions up there- she knows whats up!
bisbee at 11:41PM on 04/24/09
I'm at about Bisbee's altitude, and oddly, baking hasn't been the worst. First time I tried to cook stew meat, we ate it for dinner the next night, instead. Anything cooked in liquid takes a lot longer, and if you're talking about a long-braised dish for a tough meat, it can be a long, long time. Dried pasta will toy with you. First, the water takes forever to come to a boil. Then it takes longer than you think it should, so you check it over and over.Dried beans are also a barrel of laughs. And rice made me stupid.
Buy a pressure cooker. I never needed one before, now I love it.
As far as baking, it's interesting.
dbcurrie at 12:22AM on 04/25/09
Hi! I live in Flagstaff at about 7k', and some things that worked out fine for me with NO ADJUSTMENTS: zucchini and banana breads, biscotti. Granola is the other "baking" thing I make, but it's not baking in the sense that it would be affected by alititude. Read the flourless chocolate cake thread, I like to a book I found and I've made one recipe from it, and so far so good. There are other links to a website and a book that are supposed to be pretty good too.
joyyy at 12:46AM on 04/25/09
Denver area - the only "predictable" baking fix I've done is for cookies - I bump the oven up 25 degrees and pull them out a few minutes earlier than the recipe calls for. (it's something to do with the leavening acting faster here?)
I've had good success with bread and cake recipes with no modifications.
ansate at 9:54AM on 04/25/09
Candy making is also challenging at high altitude. I'm at 6500'.
Water boils at 200 degrees, so you have to alter the temperature for the recipes. It also take longer to boil potatoes, make eggs, among other things.
I add a little extra flour to my cake recipes, and cut down on the leavening.
When baking bread, you're supposed to cut the yeast amount in half.
Definitely need a pressre cooker for making pinto beans. It takes 2 hours. I use a crock pot for them, too. Takes the whole day.
Good luck! You'll get accustomed to the altitude pretty quickly, I bet.
lol@dbcurrie-rice drives me crazy!
soozm32 at 3:33PM on 04/26/09
@soozm32, I used to have my timing down pat, so I didn't need to look at a clock to know when to put the water on to boil, when to put the pasta in...I had a rhythm for it all, and it all came together at the end.
When I moved here, that rhythm was way off. I'd start the water boiling for pasta too late, or I'd turn my back for a few minutes and the water would boil out of a pot and I'd burn something. I never burned so many foods as I did in the first few months we lived here.
Now, I've got it mostly under control, but there are still times when everything else is done and the noodles are still al crunchee instead of al dente.
dbcurrie at 4:15PM on 04/26/09
When we moved to a lower elevation for about a year, I would always overcook/burn eggs and overdo boiled potatoes.
It's that subconscious rhythm we have but don't really notice until a variable changes.
Kind of like trying to cook on an electric stove-throws me off big time!
soozm32 at 6:32PM on 04/26/09
Hi Toasteebagel,
Where in Wyoming are you moving? I am a avid foodie (and blogger) - moved to Laramie, Wyoming almost 2 years ago (from sea level - actually lived on a boat) and have started to get successfully accustomed to living at 7200 feet. I would love to talk to you about it. Wyoming is a VERY friendly place so you should find no shortage of advise. There are a few tricks I would be happy to share, but it's probably more than a comment section is going to put up with. - You can visit my blog at http://www. chilefire.com (have a baby so I haven't been great about posting recently). Please feel free to contact me via the blog about moving to Wyoming. Its a beautiful place to be!
btugwell at 10:13PM on 04/28/09