Wednesday, July 14, 2010

High-altitude two-egg cake (p. 749)

Most of you are probably lucky enough not to live at high altitude. I really hate baking at high altitude because it affects pretty much all baking and cooking. There are rules of thumb to ingredient adjustment but they aren't universal and vary based on recipe. In my experience, cookies turn out pretty normal, although they stale quickly. Items with whipped egg whites are problematic. And cakes can be disastrous. That being said, it's probably a good idea to bake my way through all the high-altitude recipes before we (potentially) move.

I decided that we needed some sweets and I made High-altitude two-egg cake (p. 749) in cupcake form.

The recipe is simple. I mixed sifted cake flour (considerably more expensive than most other flours and sold in a box), baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, I mixed butter, sugar, and vanilla, to which I added the two eggs alluded to in the title. I added the flour to the egg mixture, alternating it with milk. And into the cupcake pans it went:




As you can see, I'm not the neatest baker in the world.

The results were a mixed bag, as evidenced by the picture below:



Some of the cupcakes were beautiful. Some of them exploded and leaked cupcake guts all over the pan, becoming cupcake conjoined twins. I threw out the rejects and frosted the rest with store bought frosting (I hang my head in shame). They were tasty! These cupcakes aren't going to win Cupcake Wars but they were good and were extremely simple.

I'm in the middle of my goal of making progress in the under-represented chapters during the summer. Cakes and cupcakes is definitely one of those chapters, so look forward to more cake posts.



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1 comment:

  1. Didn't have baking powder at the lake, so Joy of Cooking said, can replace baking powder baking soda and soured milk. So I added a lemon to the cup of milk in the recipe and then a teaspoon or so of baking soda. It worked well. Served with fresh blueberries from, like, 10 feet from the cabin.

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