Want meringues that look like DIA’s pointy white roof? Banana bread that won’t be mistaken for a LoDo paving brick? Apple pie with actual apples, not applesauce, inside?
Get yourself a copy of “Pie in the Sky: Successful Baking at High Altitudes” for recipes that will fix just about any high-altitude baking problem, with instructions on how to make sturdy meringues, domed quick breads and muffins, and perfect pies.
When “Pie in the Sky” author and baking expert Susan G. Purdy’s “foolproof” chocolate buttermilk cake rose grandly, then sank spectacularly in a Santa Fe oven, the traveling teacher and author of 12 cookbooks became a traveling test kitchen in pursuit of the definitive high-altitude guide.
On tour to promote the book that took her five years to write, she brought her own measuring cups and a head full of expertise to my kitchen at 5,003 feet for a lesson in baking (for me) and in grace amid chaos (for her). As children zoomed in and out of the kitchen, Purdy; my neighbor, Jody Neumann (an accomplished baker); and I set out to test Purdy’s detailed recipes and all our patience.
We chose her Boulder Blitz Torte, a showy butter cake with meringue layers and whipped cream filling, and Flourless Chocolate Espresso Truffle Cake, whose rich flavor and glamorous exterior belie its simple preparation.
Between measuring and mixing, I quizzed Purdy about the challenges of mile-high baking:
Baking at high altitudes can seem so complicated. What are the main things we need to know?
Three things: One, the higher you go, the lower the temperature at which water boils (203 degrees at 5,000 feet), and most baked goods set at the same temperature as the boiling point of water.
Two, there’s less air pressure, so baked goods expand more quickly. They rise up and then fall.
Three, the higher you go (as altitude increases), the more evaporation there is, leaving a greater concentration of other ingredients. (This is why high-altitude adjustments to sea-level recipes often decrease the sugar.)
Why do ingredients need to be at room temperature?
It’s hard enough to get things to rise properly even when they are at room temperature. So, if you have cold ingredients, you are already behind. If you have everything at room temperature and you add something cold, the batter will seize up and get lumpy.
In the butter cake layer for the Boulder Blitz Torte, why do you have to alternate adding wet and dry ingredients to batter?
So that all the ingredients will be creamy. If you have a food processor and you can push a button, you can make this cake.
I beat the heck out of the egg whites, but my meringues are always droopy.
At sea level you want the whites to be stiff, but the higher you are, the goopier you want them to be. Visualize little balloons covered with sugar: As soon as you see beater marks, you are close. See how it’s smooth, glossy and satiny? The meringue recipe for 10,000 feet (where many bakers give up), you can wear it as a hat, it’s that stable.
(At this point, Purdy removes the bowl from the mixer and turns it upside-down. Jody and I gasp. The meringue stays put.)
Why do the apples get mushy inside pies here?
The type of apples makes a difference. From sea level to 7,000 feet, you can use crisp cooking apples – Granny Smith, Jonathan or Rome. But above 7,000 feet, soft eating apples will bake more quickly, like Golden Delicious or McIntosh.
How do you ensure “popped” popovers?
The trick is to have a really hot oven because the eggs have to get a good blast of heat.
Friends in high places
In researching and writing “Pie in the Sky,” Purdy found most of the one-size-fits-all adaptations were just plain wrong.
“I climbed the mountain and realized I couldn’t bake up there. It took five years of traveling from mountaintops to sea level to write this book,” says Purdy, who tested each recipe at sea level, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000 and 10,000 feet. “You can only change one thing at a time, so I made a lot of friends with the leftovers.”
Clients and staff at the Red Door shelter in Breckenridge gobbled up winners and losers in the many bran muffin tests at the vacation chalet of Sandy and Skip Porterfield.
Purdy even tested the altitude changes on Duncan Hines, Pillsbury and Betty Crocker cake mixes, concluding you should follow adjustments on the box up to 7,000 feet, and line pans with greased and floured wax paper or parchment. At higher altitudes, she says to follow the altitude adjustments, and add two to four tablespoons flour, one to three tablespoons water, one teaspoon of vanilla or other flavoring, and bake in the lower third of the oven.
After our lesson, she headed over to The Cupboard, the kitchen shop in Old Town Fort Collins, where staffers had prepared Aspen Apple Cake, Independence Pass Brownies and Black and White Chocolate Chip Cookies.
“I was extremely impressed by the book. It was really well-researched,” says Robin Hammond of The Cupboard. From there, Purdy has been retracing her testing travels, teaching classes and promoting her book.
As one of the guest celebrity chefs at the Toast of Breckenridge, Purdy will demonstrate her baking tips Saturday, and will teach a class at The Savory Inn Cooking School in Vail on Sunday. (See box on Page 1F for details.)
“You can bake from the sea to the mountains and leave a little trail of crumbs all the way,” says Purdy, who left us with proud meringues and the taste of success.
Staff writer Kristen Browning-Blas can be reached at 303-820-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com.
