Baking in Boulder - Orange Nut Bread

For my next trick, I decided to try a recipe of Mark Bittman's to use up some of the oranges I had lying around. After talking to two friends extensively about baking at altitude, I came to the conclusion that making too many changes right off the bat wasn't wise; as in any experiment, one needs a control. Accordingly, the only change I made to the original recipe was to add an extra egg. I did this for two reasons: 1) to add extra moisture, as things tend to dry out in the mountains, and 2) because eggs act as a natural leavening agent. 

I had to bake the loaf for three more minutes longer than the maximum recommended by Bittman until the toothpick came out clean, but it seemed to rise nicely.

Because I made the loaf right before going out of town for the weekend, I threw it into the freezer before tasting it, hoping to keep it fresh for when both Ed and I got back on Sunday. I let it defrost overnight and sliced into it the next morning.

Ed and I agreed that the flavor was excellent. It was a little on the dense side, however, and Ed felt (though I'm not sure I agree) that it needed either more butter or more oil. 

Now I'm left with a conundrum: how to make it airier? Virginia, who faces a larger challenge than I do since her home in Bogotá is about 3,000 feet higher than mine, told me that she had to reduce the baking soda in her banana bread recipe from 2 teaspoons to just 1/4 teaspoon to get it right. Counterintuitively, the loaves she baked with more leavening in them turned out to be more dense. The reason is that the batter rose so fast that it collapsed, resulting in dense, inedible bread. Less leavening led to lighter bread. My bread, however, doesn't seem to have collapsed, so I'm not sure what to try next. I may split the recipe in half and add different amounts of leavening to each half, then bake both versions side by side to compare the results.

Even if I don't master it, however, I'm heartened that my result is, if not excellent, certainly very good. Baking in Boulder may not be as hopeless as I feared.