(alia) writes:

>From: (alia)
>Newsgroups: rec.food.baking
>Subject: newbie, altitude cooking
>Date: 5 Dec 2003 21:37:30 -0800
>
>i love to cook and recently moved to the sangre de christo mountains
>in new mexico. i never baked much before for lack of space, but here
>i find i am cooking a lot more, and baking as well.
>however, i am at around 7000 feet here, and my cakes are Falling In!
>does anyone have any suggestions as to how to compensate for this? i
>understand there is a way, but i dont know how to do it.


Alia:

Some of the best answers are recycled... here is a post which I made
to this newsgroup in answer to a similar question about a year ago:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: rec.food.baking
From: (The Old Bear)
Subject: High-Altitude bread recipe?
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 18:18:26 -0400

Angel > writes:

>From: Angel >
>Newsgroups: rec.food.baking
>Subject: High-Altitude bread recipe?
>Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 04:02:34 GMT
>
>Can any of you offer a tried and true recipe for homemade white or
>wheat bread ... that won't be watery and unusable at altitude? I'm at
>6000 feet, and had just learned to make it from scratch at sea level
>before moving here!

You may find this book helpful:

The New High Altitude Cookbook
by
Beverley Anderson & Donna Miller
ISBN: 0394513088


>Alternatively, do bread machines work OK at altitude? My husband has
>suggested just buying one of them to get fresh bread, since I can't
>seem to figure out baking here.

My son moved to the University of Colorado in Boulder a couple of
years ago. We gave him a basic bread machine for his apartment. His
housemate decided to use it, following one of the recipes in the
instruction book but overlooking the note at the beginning of the
instruction book about reducing the amount of yeast. His housemate
also left the machine unattended.

Next thing I know, I am getting a phone call that the machine does
not work. The indicator lights don't even come on. It's dead dead
dead.

Further inquiry provides the following information: apparently, with
a normal amount of yeast, the dough rose over the top of the pan and
flowed down the outside between the pan and the heating element,
where it caught fire. The heat from the burning dough was suffient
to activate the small thermal fuse located within the machine, thus
shutting off all power to the machine.

They managed to clean everything up including removing the burnt
dough and had the machine looking like new -- but not working --
when I came to visit. I took it home, disassembled it, and obtained
a new thermal fuse from a local appliance repair shop. (The shop
would not fix it because their minimum one hour charge was just
about what I paid for the machine. My time, on the other hand, is
cheap -- especially when one has a son in college.)

The lesson is that you can bake at 6000 feet with a bread machine
but you need to reduce the amount of yeast and make adjustments to
the amount of liquid if your bread machine does not allow you to
alter the times of its various cycles.


>Locals tell me it's all in the leavenings, but after plenty of failed
>experiments, I'm ready to beg for help!


Your USDA Cooperative Extension probably can give you some good
information on what works at your altitude and climate.

The University of Wyoming, Agricultural Experiment Station in
Laramie, Wyoming published a 4-page bulletin (B-989) in August 1994:

Bread Machine Baking at High Altitude
prepared by
Rhoda Schantz, Assistant Professor of Food and Nutrition

You can read this bulletin online in Adobe PDF format at:

http://www.uwyo.edu/ces/pubs/wy989.pdf

I believe that this is about the third or fourth time that the folks at
the University of Wyoming have prepared guides to high altitude
baking. They've been doing this for years and this bulletin takes the
techniques they've developed and adapts them to automatic bread machine
use.

There is also a general high altitude publication (B-427) which explains
how to bake cakes and bread in the oven and includes many recipes. It
can be purchased from the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension
Service or you can download the entire 75 pages (complete with photos and
illustrations) in Adobe PDF format at:

http://www.uwyo.edu/ces/pubs/b427.pdf

Good luck and happy baking.

Cheers,
The Old Bear