After an incredibly long hiatus I am back to taking some (not-so-good) pictures of my cooking and documenting my trials and tribulations in the kitchen. My newest issue is altitude, and it has become my arch nemesis! I have lived in quite a few states considering my age, but all of them have been at sea level. I never had a problem grabbing a recipe off the internet or from my overflowing cookbook shelves, until now. Almost every.single.thing I cook or bake since arriving in Denver in July has been below average or practically inedible. I have always loved to bake, and when we moved to California on our own I started baking a lot and getting fairly good at it. I was known at work for the yummy baked goods I brought in often. It was a sort of IT Manager meets Betty Crocker dynamic, and I quite enjoyed it. I never realized that recipes could be written poorly, because at sea level you never notice the imperfections that become glaring at above 5,000 feet. Now that I am in Colorado I have to be picky about the recipe I use, make sure it is from a credible source and can be adapted to the altitude. I've tried brownies - they puffed up over the pan and then sank in the middle, creating a valley of chewy crumbles that refused to leave their pan; I searched for days in October for the perfect recipe to make spice cake for the hubby's big 30th birthday - it came out tasting like some spiced chemistry experiment gone wrong (I then whipped up a box mix and it came out fine, boy did that frost my...well, you get the idea); after a number of other failed baking trials I decided to invest in something to help me out. Everything I read praised the cookbook Pie in the Sky - Successful Baking at High Altitudes... by Susan G. Purdy. "Aha!" I thought, you can't go wrong with a cookbook made specifically for struggling bakers at high altitudes, can you?

Another blogger's carrot cake post gave me a hankering, and the name of the recipe in the book is "Colorado Carrot Cake" - it must be a sign! So I set off to baking...

I followed the directions to a T, greased and floured my silicone bundt pan like it was going out of style (one of the common problems for baking here is things not wanting to release from their pans properly), and made sure to test a few spots on the cake when the timer went off. When the tester came out clean I removed the cake and let it cool for a good hour or so before trying to get it out. After much coercion, I got the cake to come out fully intact (a success in itself). I made the frosting and lathered it over the cake before cutting out 2 generous pieces for myself and the hubby. The result? The flavor was fine, but the consistency was solidified on the edges and gooey in the middle. For the next few days I tried to salvage what I could by eating out little chunks of cake on the edges, but once the cake was about 1/2 gone I couldn't manage any more and it went into the garbage ='(

What went wrong? Honestly, I think if I knew my baking would be a little better after being here for 10 months. Someone told me they don't use silicone bakeware, so I am going to nix using my lovely pans and see if that makes a difference. I also heard that the metal cake testers sometimes lie compared to the good ol' toothpick. A local baker recommended a scale for baking so I can be accurate with my measurements, so I picked up a Cuisinart one with my 20% off coupon at Bed Bath & Beyond.

I am determined to bake something successfully, so I will keep trying things and see what works. I just hope something goes right soon, because I need my baking relaxation back!