the art of baking at high altitude

Bogota is situated at a whopping 8600 feet above sea level. Guadalajara was something like +/-5000 feet so this is easily the highest place we've ever lived.

I don't enjoy baking, but I can follow a recipe to perfection so when the need arises to bake something, I can whip up something that generally tastes delicious and looks decent.

A few weeks ago, Jimmy bought these berries that look like raspberries, but, in fact, taste nothing at all like raspberries. I wasn't sure what to do with them so I decided to bake some muffins. I can bake the Barefoot Contessa's muffin recipe all day long and they are divine. Enter 8600 feet for muffin-baking and the picture totally changes.

I knew that you needed to make adjustments in flour, leavening agents, liquids, etc for baking at high altitude but all the advice I've read says to try your recipe first and see how it goes before making adjustments the second time.

That's a load of hooey.

These muffins were spectacular on top - they had a crown that was superbly browned and beautiful.

Unfortunately, that was the only part of the muffin that rose. The inside was nothing but mush.

The muffins all went in the trash can (with the exception of a couple muffin tops that I ate for quality control purposes).

Yesterday, I decided to make waffles and bacon for breakfast. I always use Bisquick for the waffle mix and the directions on the back of the package said that no high-altitude adjustments were necessary for up to something like 6500 feet. Well what's another 2000 feet between waffles???

Apparently a lot.

The waffles - thankfully - were edible and had good flavor, but they were very dry. Nothing that extra syrup couldn't fix, but you can only dump so much syrup on your kid's plate before you feel guilty.

If I intend to bake here, I'm going to have to learn these tricks of the baking trade.

On second thought, maybe the best trick of the baking trade is to learn where the good bakeries are?