Scientific Baking

For the past week, I have been in Divide, Colorado, which is at an altitude of almost 10,000 feet.  I wanted to bake something, so I researched how altitude affects baking.  Here are various facts I learned about the science of baking in high attitudes.  

1. Due to the lower air pressure, cakes tend to rise too fast which causes them to deflate.  To prevent this, use less of leavening agents such as baking soda or baking powder.
2. In high altitudes there are fewer air particles.  This decreased amount of air particles means there are fewer particles to carry the scent of food to your nose.  Since smell is directly related to taste, this means the food has a diminished taste.  Therefore, use more flavoring elements, such as increasing the amount of vanilla extract.  
3. The dryness of the air affects how moist the cake turns out.  Therefore, add more liquids; however, sometimes it is recommended to add more flour in addition to more liquids, which seems to counter-act the purpose of adding more liquids.  Also, acidic liquids are more helpful in high altitudes.  For example, replace milk with buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream.
4. The temperature of the oven also needs to be adjusted because things heat differently at high altitudes (for example, water boils at a lower temperature than at sea level).  Sometimes, this means increasing the oven temperature by 25 degrees, at certain altitudes.  However, since I was at 10,000 feet I pre-heated the oven to a higher temperature, and then decreased the temperature once I put the cupcakes in the oven.  This seemed to be effective, because the cupcakes didn’t come out deflated.

So, taking these tips into account I set out to make chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing.  They weren’t failures, but I wasn’t entirely crazy about them.  They were a bit dry, and I could detect the low quality of the Nestle cocoa powder I used.  Maybe this is just the immorality of the Nestle corporation manifesting in the taste of the cupcakes.  

   à Here’s a side note: Nestle is a major producer of baby formula.  In the company’s history, it wanted to expand its market to include Africa.  In their marketing campaigns, they used tactics to persuade African mothers that baby formula is the most beneficial way of feeding their babies.  However, impoverished African mothers could not afford to buy the proper amount of formula, so they would dilute it, resulting in protein deficiency and other maladies in their babies.  But let’s just suppose the supply of formula was not the issue.  There were still problems because the formula mix required adding fresh water, which is often not available in many parts of Africa.  Therefore babies would become ill from formula made with contaminated water.  And finally, illiterate mothers often did not know how to prepare the formula properly because they couldn’t read the instructions on the labels.  On the other hand, breast-feeding has been proven to have physiological benefits for both the baby and the mother (for example, breast-feeding releases a short-term contraceptive hormone in the mother that prevents additional pregnancies.  Breast-feeding has also been linked to a lower likelihood of breast cancer).  Had Nestle not distributed propaganda on the “superiority” of their baby-formula for their financial gain, countless African babies and mothers would have been better off.  This is just one of Nestle’s ethically questionable impacts.  There is a variety of other scandals as a result of their business practices around the world.  

Back to cupcakes.  The saving grace of the cupcakes was the peanut butter icing.  It was pretty delicious, though if I attempt it next time I’ll try to have a slightly less prominent peanut-butter taste.  I also got to use a new toy this time, a piping bag for the icing!  Due to third-world exploitation, I got two pastry bags and three decorative tips at Wal-Mart for a total of $5.  Not only does this give the icing an artistic look, but it also makes it way faster to ice the cupcakes.  Here is the end result.