Baking in Boulder - Cornbread and Banana Bread

Boulder is just over a mile high. The altitude affects the way you breathe when your heart rate accelerates, though this improves with time. The altitude also affects the way foods and liquids behave when you cook them, but this does not improve with time.

Basic cooking doesn't change much. Water takes longer to boil and boils at a lower temperature because...science. Your stir fry or steamed broccoli is going to take a tad longer but will generally come out in Boulder the same way it would at sea level.

Baking is a different ball game.

The quality of the air affects baking in up here: its drier and its thinner. The dryness is easy to wrap your head around; extra liquid--just a bit--is needed and that's all there is to it. The thinner air, however, affects the way doughs and batters rise, and this is where things get interesting. For one thing, you have to adjust the amount of leavening (baking powder/soda or yeast), though there's no formula for the precise amount to omit. Other factors come into play in unexpected ways, too; for example, if you over-beat your eggs before adding them to your batter, the excess air will cause problems. Too much leavening or too much air in your eggs means that your baking will rise so fast that it will collapse, yielding decidedly unattractive, and probably less tasty, results. One more thing to keep in mind is that because water takes longer to heat up, you have to increase oven temperatures.

Most cookbooks are written for sea level cooks, and recipes I've baked for years with great results now need tweaking. But no set of exact steps exists, so I'm launching into experimentation, making notes all along. My system, so far, is to jot down the changes I make and the outcome on a sticky note, which I attach to the recipe.

My first venture was Mark Bittman's cornbread recipe. First, I set the oven to 400 degrees instead of the recommended 375; he suggests adding 25 degrees to baking temperatures above 3,000 feet. I reduced the baking powder from 1 1/2 teaspoons to 1 and used 1 1/3 cups of buttermilk instead of 1 1/4. I'd read that covering things while they baked could prevent them from drying out, so after 15 of the 30 minutes it was supposed to bake, I tented the pan with foil. The sides looked done, or even perhaps a bit overdone, at 30 minutes and the toothpick came out clean, but the top was a bit pale.

The color, I figured, was the fault of the tent, so I fired up the broiler to give it a little color. I then violated one of my most sacred kitchen rules and started doing something else while the bread was under the broiler instead of watching it closely. Oops. I pulled a somewhat splotchy loaf of cornbread out probably 90 seconds after what would have been ideal and frantically tossed the pan into a snowbank for a few minutes to stop the baking process.

I was nervous to taste it, but the result was a pleasant surprise. The bread was moist and the texture was perfect. Next time, I'm going to try tenting for the first 15 minutes, then removing the foil to let the top bake for the next 15. As far as the ingredients, I don't think I'll change a thing.

My next venture was banana bread (or, rather, banana bread muffins since I was making only a half batch and don't have a loaf pan small enough). Again, I started with an oven 25 degrees hotter than recommended. The halved recipe calls for 1/2 tsp baking soda, but I used only 1/4 plus a tiny pinch more, and instead of 3 1/2 TB sour milk I used 4. I didn't tent the muffins at all after the fiasco with the cornbread. This, I think, was a mistake. The muffins were done in 36 minutes. (A full-sized loaf, according to the recipe, takes an hour. Not sure about sea-level muffins.) Interestingly, they were paler inside than usual and yielded fewer crumbs. Ed deemed them delicious, and while I agree that they're pretty good I think I still have some work to do. The texture inside is good, but they have a crispy crust all around the outside that they never had before. Could this be the fault of the higher temperature? Should I have covered them for at least part of the baking time to counteract the dry air?

I think I will try foil next time and then, if that doesn't work, lower the temperature.

Baking up here is certainly an adventure, and while I am sort of enjoying the discovery process, it will be a long time before I attempt a soufflé.