High Altitude Cake Baking Tips

When you are baking in high altitudes, 3,500 feet about sea-level or higher, there are some obstacles that you have to overcome if you want to bake cake. One has to compensate the lack of air pressure and moisture at high altitudes by altering cooking temperatures, recipe contents, and baking times.

Because there is a lack of pressure and moisture in the air, high altitude baking means cakes expand faster, which can result in your cake sinking, the batter overflowing.

In order to strengthen the structure for high altitude baking you can use extra large eggs instead of large eggs, or add an egg to a recipe to give it more structure, as well as more liquid to help combat the rapid evaporation. You can also add strength to the structure of your cake by making sure that any water or eggs that you use in the recipe are cold.

You can also strengthen the structure of your cake when high altitude baking by replacing margarine with butter or high-quality vegetable shortening if you recipe calls for such an ingredient. You can also substitute all-purpose flour for cake flour.

Lifting your cake pan filled with batter onto the counter from 2-3 inches above the counter to help rid the batter of excess air bubbles. You can also get rid of excess air bubbles by zig-zagging a knife through the batter once it is in the pan. You will want to do either of these right before you put your cake in the oven.

To help prevent your cake batter from overflowing when high altitude baking you should increase your baking temperature 15 to 25 degrees to allow your cake to establish a crust.

You will also want to fill your cake pans 1/3 to 1/2 full rather than the typical 2/3 full since cakes rise higher when high altitude baking. Also, because high altitude cakes do rise higher, you will want to remove any oven racks above the rack on which you will bake your cake.

Because you raise the temperature when high altitude baking, you will need to cut your bake time down by about 20% to prevent your cake from becoming dry and brittle.

Moisture is also an issue when high altitude baking because of the lack of moisture in the air that causes rapid evaporation. Using 20% more water is recommended when cakes to combat the lack of moisture in the air. This will help you to prevent a dry cake when high altitude baking.

High altitude baking will probably take a little trial and error before you perfect your technique. Hopefully you will find these tips helpful the next time that you try to bake a cake at high altitudes.

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/kitchentips/cooking_altitude.html
http://www.crisco.com/basics/tips/high_altitude.asp