What a wonderful Christmas we had while visiting Colorado – fresh brisk air, snow, friends and family.  And as is our tradition, we baked.

The challenge this year was the high altitude and how it would affect favorite breads, cookies, and quick breads.  While there are many terrific high-altitude baking books available, any baker understands the comfort one has with tried and true familiar recipes.  Aren’t there a few simple adjustments to compensate for the altitude?

We baked using recipes from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Bread Bible and The Pie and Pastry Bible, Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery, Carol Field’s The Italian Baker, and King Arthur Flour’s Bakers Companion and Cookie Companion.

Here’s what we learned about high-altitude baking this Christmas in the Rocky Mountains:

High altitude, among other things, can significantly affect baking outcomes.  With higher altitude comes lower air pressure and typically drier atmospheric conditions.  Altitude begins to affect baking results at around 3,000 feet – a level where the baker must begin to make recipe modifications.

Below are some helpful tips when you’re baking at a high altitude:

Accelerate baking of quick breads by raising oven temperature and shortening baking time.

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Add additional flour to strengthen the structure.

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Use higher protein flourat very high altitudes.    Lower humidity causes quicker evaporation, which can result in drier batter or dough.  It can also cause a higher concentration of sugar, weakening the structure.Increase the liquid, or in the case of tender crumb goods such as cakes and muffins, increase the egg content. .

Utilize the autolyse.  After initially mixing together the flour, starter, and water, let the dough rest for 20 minutes to allow the flour to fully absorb the water and the enzymes to untangle the gluten.  Then proceed with adding additional ingredients and kneading.    Water quality also affects baked goods, with the two major culprits being pH (acidity) and mineral content (softness or hardness).Increase the acidity. Yeast loves an acidic environment, but many municipalities’ tap water is either naturally alkaline or is fortified with alkaline agents in order to prevent public water pipe corrosion.  Replace some of the recipe’s liquid with vinegar. .

Neutralize or mimic the water where the recipe originated.  Use bottled water in your recipe.  I know many bakers who will use bottled water from the country or region where the recipe originated.

High-Altitude Yeast Breads

Yeast.  Most recipes today call for instant yeast, rather than active dry yeast. Instant yeast will begin its duty immediately whereas active dry yeast takes a little longer, rendering rising times shorter.  At high altitudes, the dough will rise faster anyway, which results in less time for flavor development.  Dry active yeast helps the high altitude baker in this situation because it will cause a slower rise, allowing for sufficient flavor development.

In her book The Bread Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum recommends substituting 25% more active dry yeast when the recipe calls for instant dry yeast.  Most high-altitude baking experts recommend using 25% less yeast when baking at higher elevations.  So by merely using the same amount of active dry yeast for instant dry yeast, you kill these two birds with one stone.

Although you have probably read that you must first re-hydrate active dry yeast with water, I found that you can proceed just as if you were using instant yeast – and mix it with the dry ingredients, if that is what the recipe calls for.

Most baking books will specify how much the dough should rise in terms of volume, not just time (e.g., “let rise until doubled”).  This is a preferred method, especially for high-altitude baking.  Mark the side of your rising container with masking tape rather than merely trying to eye it.  I found the rising time to be somewhat longer using this method than at sea level.  I let the dough rise in a warm place – between 75°F and 85°F (an oven with the light turned on or a measuring cup of boiling water in the microwave will usually do the trick).

Make a sponge.  The technical term is “pre-ferment”.  In Italian it’s biga.  There are other names as well:  poolish, starter, sponge, pâte fermentée, each with its specific methodology and ethnic origin.  If your recipe doesn’t call for a sponge, simply use about a third of the recipe’s water, a third of the flour it calls for, and 1/16 teaspoon of the yeast.  Stir the ingredients for a couple of minutes, cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for an hour.  Place the mixture in the refrigerator overnight (or up to three days).  In the morning combine with the other dough ingredients and proceed as directed in the recipe.  You’ll have well-developed flavor without over-rise.

Add additional flour.  I typically added about two tablespoons of flour per recipe at my elevation.  As a general guideline, add a tablespoon at 3,000 feet and an additional tablespoon for every 1,500 feet.  Add the additional flour at the end of kneading, especially if using a stand mixer.

Use higher protein flour.  At very high altitudes, say above 6,500 feet, consider switching to higher protein flour.

Compensate for water quality.  Yeast thrives in an acidic environment, so consider substituting a tablespoon of vinegar for any liquid in your recipe.  This is especially true for sweet breads with a high sugar content that can conceivably slow yeast activity.  And as stated above, many municipal water supplies are alkaline because they add agents to neutralize any acidity that can corrode pipes.

Consider using bottled water for your recipes.  Mineral content of public water systems varies considerably.  The recipe’s origin may have significantly different water qualities from yours.  You can compensate for this effect by purchasing a bottle of water from that region!

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Quick Breads

Leavening.  Quick breads and brownies typically use baking power or soda instead of yeast.  They will rise much faster at higher elevations, so less of these leavening agents are needed.  King Arthur Flour recommends the following adjustment:

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Baking temperature and time. Leavening and evaporation occur more quickly at higher elevations, so baking at a higher temperature will set the structure of bread before it over-expands and dries out or rises too rapidly and then collapses.  Increase the oven temperature by 25°F (by 15°F for chocolate, cakes, or brownies).  To compensate for the higher temperature, decrease baking time by about 5 minutes (or a bit longer) for every 30 minutes of baking time.

Add additional flour.  We typically added about two tablespoons of flour per recipe at my elevation.  As a general guideline, add a tablespoon at 3,000 feet and an additional tablespoon for every 1,500 feet.  Add the additional flour at the end of kneading, especially if using a stand mixer.

Use higher protein flour.  Consider switching to higher protein flour when making quick bread or muffins.

Use more liquid.  Increase liquids by 1 tablespoon at 3,000 feet and 1 additional teaspoon for every 1,000 feet.  You can use extra eggs as part of the liquid if the recipe calls for it.  If you need a partial egg, you can either use the egg white or scramble the egg and use the amount you need.

Use less sugar.  As liquid from the batter evaporates, the sugar will become more concentrated, weakening the batter’s structure.  Decrease the sugar by 1 tablespoon per cup used.

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Cookies

Use the guidelines for Quick Breads above to make adjustments to your favorite cookie recipes.

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What are your high-altitude baking tips?  We’d love to hear them.

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Further Reading:

• Cooking for Engineers:  Baker’s Yeast
• King Arthur Flour
• Red Star Yeast
• Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Bread Bible
• Colorado State University Extension’s Guide to High Altitude Baking

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Andreas is an accomplished baker – his family is full of professional bakers, so it’s in his blood.  Moreover, he recently completed extensive baking instruction at New York’s French Culinary Institute.  What better way to relax than enjoy the garden, the pool, and baking?

I met Rose Levy Beranbaum a few months ago when she began coming to Bellavitae at the recommendation of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.  Her cookbooks are well suited for every type of baker, from the novice (me) to the expert (Andreas).  I had success with bread recipes from Rose’s The Bread Bible, so I asked Andreas if we could try some desserts from The Pie and Pastry Bible.  He’s a fan of Rose’s so no convincing was necessary.

Here’s what we made:

Open-Faced Fresh Blueberry Pie (page 107)

There are several blueberry bushes on the property and the fruit is now at its peak.  This pie seemed like the perfect choice.  We put a twist on the recipe by using the crumb topping Rose uses on her Apple Crumb Pie (page 86).  We used her Basic Flaky Pie Crust (Page 22).

The dessert turned out beautifully – the pie’s star was undoubtedly the blueberries, which we had freshly picked.  No cloying sauce or heavy pastry to crowd out nature’s sweet gift to summer – fresh berries.  What a delight.

Classic Napoleon (page 453)

Gulp.  What dessert is more intimidating?  Or more satisfying!  I hadn’t had Classic Napoleon since the last time I vacationed at the Cala di Volpe.  This resort hotel on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda may very well have the best hotel lunch in the world.  The freshest, most carefully crafted cuisine still remains in my memory – including their Napoleon, which I had at least once a day (!)

The Napoleon is a combination of many French classics:

Classic Puff Pasty [Millefoglie in Italian] (Page 417)

Puff pastry seems to be the threshold over which all would-be pastry chefs must cross.  Once again, Rose guides you through the process with ease, anticipating any question or problem that may arise during your endeavor.  And yes, Rose, we gave the pastry a total of seven turns!

Poured Fondant (Page 581)

What used to be a painstaking process for this cream confection is now extraordinarily easy with Rose’s use of a food processor.

Pastry Cream [Crème Pâtissière] (Page 560)

Rose’s version of this classic custard is light but still flavorful due to her use of whole eggs (instead of just the yolks) and half-and-half (instead of heavy cream).  Fat tends to dull the palate, so a lighter pastry cream will allow other flavors of any dessert to shine (éclairs, fruit tarts, and of course Napoleons).

Chocolate Drizzle Glaze (Page 454)

As Rose suggests in other recipes, we used chocolate that had not too-high a percentage of cocoa – I think we used 52%.

Cooking – and baking – can be so relaxing.  And it’s a fun project to do with a dear friend.   Our two desserts turned out wonderfully and I just finished the last piece of the Napoleon today – it kept well refrigerated since Sunday.

So thanks Andreas and Rose (and Ingeborg and Wil).  I have a few new techniques under my belt!

By the way, Rose has one of the most helpful websites / blogs for baking and I highly recommend it.  She has developed a sizeable following of bakers that write in to offer comments and ask questions.  So if you cook from one of her books and get stuck, you can simply check out her blog for comments or even write in and wait for her to answer, something that is rare in the cookbook world.

Finally, here is what amazon.com has to say about The Pie and Pastry Bible:

Reading about the ins and outs of baking the perfect, flaky pie crust is a little like reading about how to achieve the perfect golf swing: the proof is in the doing.  And it often takes a remarkably intuitive reader to understand exactly what the author is getting at.  Not so the work of Rose Levy Beranbaum, the author who gave us The Cake Bible.  If ever there was a cookbook author who could place her hands on top of yours, putting you through the proper motions, helping you arrive at just the right touch, Beranbaum is the one.

The Pie and Pastry Bible begins with the crust.  The author confesses right up front that 21 years ago, when she first began her quest for the perfect crust, “it was a complete mystery to me.”  She wasn’t looking for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but something she could consistently turn out at a moment’s notice.  The ideal pie crust, she writes, “has light, flaky layers, but also … is tender, and nicely browned, with a flavor good enough to eat by itself.”

In a book that stretches to about 700 pages long, her favorite pie crust is the first recipe:  Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust. Typically, Beranbaum lists the ingredients by measure and weight for three separate sizes of pies, then gives instructions for the food processor or by hand.

After 70 pages of pie crusts, tart crusts, and crumb pie crusts of every imaginable make and combination, Beranbaum starts with fruit pies.  Her first (of many) detailed charts shows exactly what her ratios are of fruit to sugar to cornstarch.  Then each recipe (start with The Best All American Apple Pie) includes pointers for success as well as several variations on the theme.  Under the headline “Understanding,” Beranbaum goes that extra mile by taking the trouble to explain just why something works the way it does.

If you are only going to own one cookbook for pie and pastry recipes of every imaginable stripe and combination, you can’t go wrong with this one.  It’s the Bible, after all.

–Schuyler Ingle

 

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