High Altitude Cooking

I am about to try to make a pecan pie. Pecan pie has always been one of my specialties, but this pecan pie will be made at 7900 feet above sea level, instead of the usual 200 or so feet.

When we first got this place in the mountains, everything I cooked was underdone, or overdone, or squishy in the middle and done on the sides, or just burnt. I'm a fairly decent cook and this was very disheartening to me, after 40+ years in the kitchen. I had seen those high altitude adjustments on the sides of boxes and packages, but it never occurred to me that this was my problem, until I had a conversation with my aunt, who had also had a cabin near here at one time. Ah-ha! Higher altitudes DO make a difference in how ingredients interact with each other.

This trip I've had better luck with things. Last week, I made a cake that turned out all right. It was kind of crumbly but I was using only ingredients I had on hand. The icing resembled penuche fudge, but it was OK, too. But this time, I'm making a pie for my son who is arriving tomorrow, and I want it to be as close to perfect as I can make it. So we will see how this pie project turns out.

From what I read, you have to adjust the sugar down, the fat up, and the oven temperature either up or down -- this seems to be a matter of opinion. When I've used the oven for various meal dishes, I have been adjusting up by 25 degrees, and this has been working pretty well. One variation on this whole affair was addressed by a cook in Denver, who adjusts up for a while during the baking time on the pie, then adjusts down toward the end. Might try that method. However, we are a good bit higher here than Denver, and every thousand or so feet seems to make a difference.

OK, I'm off to the kitchen to see how it goes. Will report back in a future post.

Onward ....