Hampton - High-Altitude Breakfast: Sweet & Savory Baking at 5000 Feet and Above

SWEET & SAVORY BAKING AT 5,000 FEET & ABOVE

NICOLE HAMPTON

OF THE BLOG

For Jacob:
Your toast, my eggs

Hi there! Im Nicole, and Ive been baking in a high-altitude kitchen for most of my life. It doesnt have to baffle you, and you can still make the recipes that youve always loved at sea-level. This book is centered around my love for breakfast foods and my love for making things from scratch, even in my challenging, high-elevation climate.

I want to be able to make my own English muffins, and then turn them into amazing sandwiches. I love to make cheese-filled bread, and then turn it into cheese toast, and even savory French toast. Thats what were doing heretaking our breakfast baking to the next level with from-scratch recipes that will make for the most special brunches and morning meals!

Im a proponent of enjoying breakfast at any time of day, and if thats not one of the biggest perks of adulthood, I dont know what is. We eat breakfast food so much in my house that it was literally a part of my husbands wedding vows! When I was a kid, and my dad was out for the evening, my mom and I would treat ourselves to breakfast for dinnerits one of my favorite memories. My dad made us fried eggs and rice almost every Saturday morning, and I still dont think I can fry an egg just like him.

High-altitude baking can feel like a confusing thing, and I think for many people it makes them believe they arent good bakers. I spent years of my life trying to figure out why my cakes were sinking; why my bread was dense; and why nothing seemed to turn out of my oven the way it should. When I first started baking from scratch in my Denver-area home, there were so few resources available about high-altitude baking that it was a major trial and error adventure.

Baking brings me such genuine joy, and its one of my favorite parts of life. I often hear from people who lived at sea-level and moved to a high-altitude area, only to find that their once-loved recipes no longer work. My ultimate goal is to bring the ability to bake back to everyone living in a higher elevation, and to share the delight that baking brings me every day. If theres one thing Ive learned over the past 10 years of baking, its that everyone uses different methods for adapting high-altitude recipes. After developing hundreds of recipes over the years, Im sharing what I know to work best. But if you have a secret method for making your cakes rise at altitude, keep at it. If it works, it works!

In addition to the more than 80 irresistible recipes that I developed and tested in my 5,000-feet-above-sea-level kitchen, this book has dozens of tips and tricks to adapt your own recipes for high-altitude baking. I wrote this book because, for me, theres nothing more special than making a big Saturday morning family breakfast. Or making pancakes on a Tuesday night when it just seems like the right choice. Breakfast baking is an important part of life for me, and everyone, no matter where they live, should be able to enjoy it. I hope these recipes make it into your kitchen too!

Every successful baker will tell you, whether they live at sea level or on top of a mountain or anywhere in between, that an important secret to success is having the right tools and ingredients on hand for every baking task. In this section I talk about the must-have tools and equipment that you need to bake a variety of different types of baked goods. I also reveal some other items that are nice to have (i.e., I find them helpful, but you can still bake my recipes if you dont have them). Next, I list out a number of ingredients that are I use for my high-altitude baking and why theyre important.

When it comes to baking, half the battle is having the tools you need, when you need them.

Heres what I consider the necessary items to make the recipes in this book, and for most baking in general:

• Mixing bowls both large and small, at least some of them microwave- and heat-safe. A good glass nesting set is a great place to start, and you can find them inexpensively online.
• Measuring spoons and cups in both dry measure and wet measure forms. I use glass measuring cups for everything from measuring liquids to microwave-melting butter, and for stirring together small quantities of ingredients. If youre a really serious baker, you may consider getting multiple sets of dry measuring cups and spoons and several glass liquid measuring cups to make sure youve always got what you need.
• Whisks are essential to beat your ingredients and for a great many hand-mixed recipes. When it comes to hand tools, whisks are top of the list for me.
• Wooden spoons are useful to help mix doughs by hand when youre not using a mixer.
• Rubber spatulas are my go-to items to scrape and stir things together. I prefer silicone spatulas that are all one piece of the same material, which helps prevent moisture from getting inside of them.
• Pancake flipper/egg flipper spatulas are for, you guessed it, flipping pancakes, eggs, and the like. If you are a fan of big pancakes, nothing can beat a large sturdy pancake flipper!
• A pastry blender makes quick work of cutting butter into dry ingredients, which makes preparing biscuits and scones easy.
• Cake pans and bakeware in all shapes and sizes are a must. I always prefer metal baking pans, and in fact almost never use glass. Youll need a 12-cup muffin tin, 8-inch square and round cake pans, a loaf pan, and Bundt pans. Additionally, a good sturdy rimmed baking sheet pan is vital.
• Parchment paper is a kitchen workhorse, but you can use nonstick baking sheets if you prefer. I use parchment paper in cake pans and loaf pans regularly to help easily remove whatever Ive baked up.
• A box grater with both wide and thin grating sides comes in very handy in the bakers kitchen. A microplane is super helpful for zesting citrus.
• An electric hand mixer helps get batters and doughs well mixed. There are a good deal of recipes that can be hand-mixed, but even more that will come together much better, and much faster, with the help of an electric mixer.
• An instant-read thermometer helps you take the temperatures of milk for blooming yeast, bread once baked, and everything in between. Often in baking, things need to be precise, and this tool makes all the difference. If you like to fry things, such as doughnuts, a deep-frying thermometer is also important.