Summary
Susan Purdy has friends in high places. She lives in Connecticut, which is at sea level -- the elevation most cookbooks are written for. She borrowed kitchens of acquaintances living at 3,000 to 10,000 feet in elevation to write her high-altitude cookbook, "Pie in the Sky" (HarperCollins, $29.95).
Currently touring the country to promote the book, Purdy made even more friends a few weeks ago when she shared some of her knowledge with the Utah Baker's Dozen at the Grand America Hotel. The Wasatch Front is 4,200 to 4,600 feet above sea level -- and up to around 8,000 feet in areas like Deer Valley Resort, where executive pastry chef Letty Flatt bakes her signature desserts. Flatt was a seminar panelist with Purdy, as well as Ruth Kendrick of South Ogden, co-author of "Candymaking"; Mary Cech of Santa Fe, N.M., pastry chef and author of "The Wine Lover's Dessert Cookbook"; Greg Patent of Missoula, Mont., author of "Baking in America"; and Elizabeth Perreault, a Boulder, Colo., pastry chef/instructor.See the full content of this document
Extract
Altitude Adjustment
About 50 local Baker's Dozen members baked Purdy's recipe for Chocolate Buttermilk Cake and brought their results to share. To illustrate what could go wrong, Angel Skedros Manfredini, pastry chef at The Mandarin in Bountiful, made her cake using sea-level directions. The sad-looking cake had overflowed the pans and collapsed.
That's about the same result Purdy had when she tried baking a cake in the 7,000-foot altitude of Santa Fe five years ago. "It collapsed, so we covered it with whipped cream and called it pudding cake," she said. "I was teaching a baking class there, and I decided I'd better get it right, so I worked to develop some cake recipes for that alti...See the full content of this document
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