All my cakes do sink in the middle, it is true. Isn't that what frosting is for, anyway? It isn't that bad, just like anything else, you learn to adapt your favorite recipes. I have to admit, I usually just get the recipes from the people who have invented the wheel ahead of me!! But there are also scores of local cookbooks where adjusted recipes are already gathered together. We still eat pretty well here in Colorado ( I am only at 5000 feet)!

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It isn't that bad...I am at 5000 feet, and the cakes do sink, but all the more frosting! The High Altitude Baking book from Colorado Cooperative Extension Service is also a great resource...gives you all the adjustments based on elevation in 500 feet increments. We still eat pretty well here in Colorado! :0)

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I don't do a lot of precision baking, so I can't say I've ever noticed any issues with Denver's altitude. And if you make no-knead bread, it seems to come out just fine even at 9,600 feet (I made some in Breckenridge a few weeks ago). I'm not saying it isn't a problem, but an average cook probably won't notice the difference.

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An easy thing to try is just adding an extra egg to your favorite regular cake and muffin recipes. It works most of the time. No matter what you do, it's hard to get a close grained texture in your baked goods. If you bake yeast breads, it helps to give them a second rise before shaping, again to help with the texture. Dried beans are next to impossible without a pressure cooker, definitely presoak. The Junior League
cookbooks from Denver, Albuquerque, etc. have been tried by home cooks and have lots of really delicious recipes for everything. I still use them even though I no longer live in a high altitude. Enjoy Santa Fe, it's wonderful.

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I am at 7000 feet in Flagstaff AZ and have never had any problems with most quick breads or muffins, which constitute the bulk of my baking; delicate cakes and popovers are a different matter. Some general rules I have found (though I can't really vouch that they help much) are: increase baking temp 10-degrees and/or baking time 5-10 mins; decrease baking powder by 1/4 tsp for every tsp (unless that is the minimum called for, and unless you're using sour/buttermilk), add 1 Tbs water/milk. The other main issue with high altitude is that boiled things take longer to cook: especially eggs (at least 15 mins for hard boiled) and pasta (depends on the variety); here water boils at 198 instead of 212.

The Joy of Baking site has additional tips for high-altitude baking...Good luck!

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We have Pie in the Sky, and love it. Excellent results from the several recipes we have tried, both at 5280 and 10,000.
In my experience, baking is more problematic than cooking. In general, cooking simply requires more time (and sometimes more liquid, as a result). Baking potatoes at 10K takes a while! A pressure cooker is quite useful for some types of cooking.

Many baked goods require little to no adjustment at 5000, but it's not always intuitive what will work.
For folks in Denver, Cook's Street offers a great class on high altitude baking (including a great packet of tested recipes).
Reducing the amount of sugar has been one of the most successful strategies (commercial mixes tell you to add flour because you can't remove the sugar that's already mixed in--so you just dilute it with flour).
Whipping eggs to soft peaks is also a good tip, and reducing leavening is often critical. Angel food cake at 5K was a snap--looking forward to trying it again at 10K this spring.
Honestly, I think you'll find cooking/baking less challenging than adjusting your wardrobe habits. 30 degree temperature swing from morning to afternoon is normal, and 50 is not that rare. The elevation combined with the dry air will probably surprise you--45F is short sleeves weather when the sun is out, and they you'll be looking for your fleece when a cloud blows over. You may even discover several of the reasons why the population in mountain states is growing faster than the natives would like.

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i live in Reno NV elevation 4900ft and i have never used a high altitude recipe when baking and have never had a problem... when i was young i listened to my grandma and followed the high alt instructions on cake and brownie mixes but found the results to be less moist or less appealing than their non adjusted counter parts... but in regular baking of anything and everything from yeastbreads to cakes i have always had excellent results...murphy's law says my next cake will fall flat... LOL

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the only time i ever make adjustment due to altitude is when i'm making candy ok i lied haha i calculate the temp water boils at my altitude subtract it from the temp water boils at sea level and then adjust the cooking temp for sugar with that number...

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I don't bake much, but my biggest transition from sea level to 5000 ft. was eggs. I had never heard of anything but 3-minute eggs -- what they were actually called most places instead of soft boiled. Tried that the first couple of weeks here until I figured out I had to add 8-minute eggs to my vocabulary. But now, I'm almost full-circle back to 3 minutes or less since I have a great source of organic, pastured farm eggs so I eat eggs the healthiest possible way -- raw! But, dang, coffee still never really tastes hot until I go back to lower altitudes.

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We are living overseas, and recently moved from Nairobi, Kenya (5500 ft.) to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (7200 ft.) I bought Pie in the Sky, and it's brilliant. Much of the advice I found on the internet just didn't work, but Susan Purdy actually lived at these altitudes and tried the recipes over and over. I have made several recipes from the book, including cookies, cakes, and cornbread, and they all turned out perfectly.

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Candy is really tough at 5,000 feet, and will definitely be harder at 7,000 feet. You can't trust temperatures in recipes because water boils at a lower temperature, and except for fudge I still haven't figured it out. That said, Pie in the Sky is my go-to cookbook. I've had lots of problems with chocolate chip cookies at this altitude--they tend to look a little like cow pies. But the Pie in the Sky recipe works like a charm. The main thing is to know that you're probably going to have to do some tweaking to your recipes, but you'll just have to try them out and see which ones need it. Baking here is much more of a science experiment, but the payoff of all the trial and error is so worth it.

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High altitude can produce problems in both cooking and baking, as the air is much thinner and most likely much much dryer (unless in Peru/Portugal etc.)
EX. flat cookies, raw muffins with crunchy edges, concaved cakes, dry roasts, etc.

I have been successfully adjusting recipes for over 30 years, (professionally for 16) as I once lived in Denver and since 1980 have lived at 8000 feet in the mountains of Colorado.

Baisc rules of thumb include:
All foods will take longer to bake or cook in higher elevations, especially above 4000 feet, adjustments basically begin at approximately 3500 feet. Adjustments prior to this altitude are truly not very necessary, except for the longer cooking period.

( yes, water boils at a lower temp, but boiled foods will still take longer to cook thoroughly!)

Add 1-2 T more flour and liquid
Decrease sugar slightly, about 1-2 teaspoons per cup.

Use only large -extra large eggs.

Decrease baking powder and B soda slightly, approximately 1/16-1/8 per teaspoon.

Do not waste your time attempting to use/cook with a double boiler, as the middles never quite gets hot enough to produce desired results. Instead, simply do what you need to do, on direct LOW heat.

ETC ETC. These are the basics.

See Baking at High Altitude or Sharing Mtn. Recipes cookbooks for more in-depth details on adjustments as well as a superb collection of easily prepared recipes.

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