High altitude
 

Does anyone have a great recipe for soft chocolate chip cookies baked in the high mountains? I moved to NM (6,000 ft) from MA (sea level) and am having a hard time adjusting my baked desserts.
Thanks
Jini

My brother use to live there. His wife told me she puts in 1 tablespoon of applesauce. mix in with the eggs/vanilla etc.

Here is a chart I found for you...
http://www.highaltitudebaking.com/adj_recipes.htm

I didnt read the chart but its basically a bit lower more flour usually and I found I CAN NOT use butter in those chocolite chip cookies as it just pancakes them out.. if you use butter flavored shortening better luck at softer cookies. I moved from sea level to high altitude three yrs ago. My neighbor has been showing me what she does as to her having lived here all her life she doesnt get the difference. It has taken me forever same with baking a potato and roasting a chicken I had to relearn it all! good luck with your cookies but mostly its going to be hit or miss and maybe your new oven is a bit different too in reads so make sure you have another way to test the temperature in there another gage so you can find what it really is running at.

I don't know about high altitude cooking, but a friend of mine who makes wonderful cookies, says butter is not the way to go (unless the recipes call for butter). She says to use margarine or flavored shortening. She also says the brand of flour makes a difference. Gold Medal is her favorite. I know from experience White Lily flour makes beautiful buttermilk biscuits, but very flat cookies.

I lived in Denver a Mile High City for 35 years, we lived @ 5600 feet then..... we now live at a higher altitude than that, in Idaho we're nearer to your altitude. I find the comments about butter interesting as I only use butter, not that I dispute them but in my experience butter has never seemed to be an issue for me.

I so agree with Linda's comment earlier...learning to adjust to any type of cooking living at high altitudes, is a hit and miss, trial by error from boiling water, to baking a potato, to roasting meals. Hang in there you'll 'get it' in no time...


As for flour unbleached Gold Medal is my preference so I agree with MarthaT's comment about flour.

When we first moved to Denver from Ohio I had the worst time with baking and I have always loved to bake. An elderly neighbor told me that the 'key' to baking in Denver was to halve the leavening in any baked recipe by 1/2 ... baking soda, baking powder. Once I did that everything cakes, cookies, have always seemed to turn out great for me. I've never adjusted adding flour to boxed cake mixes either, even though I rarely use prepared mixes. I don't adjust the sugar, never used applesauce except to soften my cookies to a more cake like texture.

I have a collection of community cookbooks from all over the US and I just as a matter of habit cut all leavening ingredients in half and rarely have a recipe fail.

I don't dispute the High Altitude chart either... a lot of science no doubt in that chart....but if you want a tried and true seat-of-your-pants adjustment for baking that I was given 40+ years ago....just cut those leavening ingredients in half and see if that works for you.

Oh don't know if this is true at lower altitudes but I know that high pressure systems and low weather pressure systems can really affect baking.

My post is probably all 'junk' science....but 40+ years of high altitude baking I've never had someone turn down one of my cookies! :0)

Thanks! I'm going to try halving the levening and see if that works-makes alot of sense.