High Altitude Baking Tips & Tricks

These high-altitude baking tips & tricks will help with your cookies, cakes, bread, pies, and more if you're lucky enough to reside above 3,000 feet sea level. Learn how to adjust recipes for altitude, get perfect results every time, and avoid common pitfalls in this guide. It can be challenging baking with increased air pressure, but anyone can master it.

Test out these great tips with some simple jello cookies, my easy chocolate cake, or this copycat Cheesecake Factory brown bread!

Jump to:

• 1. Adjusting Your Ingredients For High Altitude Baking
• 2. Temperature and Time Adjustments
• 3. Leavening Agents
• 4. Cake Baking
• 5. Cookies and Bars
• 6. Bread Baking
• 7. Pie Baking
• 💭 Tips For Baking At High Altitudes
• ❓ Recipe FAQs
• 📖 Recipe Card
• 💬 Comments & Reviews

Baking at high altitudes is not the same as baking everywhere else. In fact, it can be somewhat challenging.

Elevations above 3,000 feet start to significantly impact baking processes, leading to faster-rising doughs, quicker evaporation of liquids, and a host of other challenges. Don't worry, once you understand how it all works, you'll be a master baker!

1. Adjusting Your Ingredients For High Altitude Baking

• Watch The Flour: At higher elevations, flour is more dry and, as a result, can absorb more liquid. In order to keep the correct level of moisture, you may need to reduce the amount of flour or add an extra tablespoon or two of liquid per cup of flour.
• Adjust Sugar: Sugar can weaken the structure of many baked goods, so you'll want to try to reduce the amount of sugar used by a couple of tablespoons. This will help keep cakes or breads from crumbling. Don't worry, a few tablespoons won't change the sweetness.
• Altering Fats: Since moisture can easily be lacking at high altitudes, adding fat (such as butter or oil) can quickly make up for it. Unfortunately, too much fat will cause your cakes or cookies to spread too much in the oven. If this is an issue, try using 1-2 tablespoons less (or check out my post on how to prevent cookies from spreading).
• Liquids at High Altitude: Since liquids evaporate quickly, your recipes may benefit from a little extra liquids. This could mean adding more water, milk, or any other liquid you might be using.

2. Temperature and Time Adjustments

• Oven Temperature Tweaks: If you increase your oven temperature by only 15-25°F, your cakes and breads will set more quickly. This will help prevent them from rising too tall and then collapsing.
• Baking Time Variations: Since you'll be slightly increasing your oven temperature, you'll want to keep an eye on your baked goods. They may bake faster, so start checking to see if they are done a few minutes before the recipe states.

3. Leavening Agents

• Baking Powder and Baking Soda Adjustments: Reducing your baking powder and/or baking soda by about 15% will prevent your baked goods from rising too quickly (and then falling afterwards). No one wants a collapsed cake!
• Yeast Breads: When baking in high altitudes, yeast breads actually don't need to rise for as long. Keep an eye on your dough and judge when it is done rising based off of its size and feel (rather than just time). If needed, you can slightly reduce the amount of yeast used.

4. Cake Baking

• Cake Ingredient Adjustments: Along with some tweaks I mentioned already, you can use an extra egg or egg whites to provide extra structure and support to reduce the risk of collapsing.
• Mixing and Baking Techniques: You might need to adjust how you mix your batter, too. If too much air is added into the cake batter (from mixing very quickly), the issue of rising and falling will be emphasized. Go ahead and mix your cake at lower speeds for shorter amounts of time to fix this.

Try these tips with my chocolate peanut butter drip cake or classic white cake.

5. Cookies and Bars

Cookies can easily become dry or overspread when baking at high altitudes. For best results, you should try slightly reducing the sugar and fat while adding a little bit more flour. Chilling the dough in the fridge is another great way to prevent overspreading (and I do it all the time, even at lower altitudes!)

6. Bread Baking

For the best bread, I would try slightly increasing the amount of water used, reduce the amount of yeast, and keeping an eye on the dough while it rises.

7. Pie Baking

Pie crusts can dry out or cook unevenly at high altitudes. I would add a little bit more water to the dough and use a pie shield or piece of aluminum foil around the edges.

Take a look at all of my pie recipes, or my homemade all-butter pie crust.

💭 Tips For Baking At High Altitudes

Lower air pressure and drier air can bring up some issues when baking at high altitudes. I've put together these tips to help you get the best results with all of your baked goods.

1. Decrease Sugar: Reduce your sugar by about 1-3 tablespoons per cup to help prevent the structure from becoming too weak. If it is too weak, your baked goods will fall apart.
2. Increase Liquid: Add 1-4 tablespoons per cup of extra liquid to keep your baked goods from becoming too dry. Dry baked goods are crumbly.
3. Adjust Oven Temperature: Increase your oven temperature by 15-25°F so that your recipes don't take too long to bake. Of course, you should make sure you keep your eye on them so they don't overbake.
4. Use a Thermometer: Using a thermometer is the easiest way to tell when your baked goods are done. I always recommend an instant read thermometer for checking the internal temperature.
5. Use High-Altitude Recipes: One of the easiest ways to ensure great results is to use recipes that are specifically written for high altitudes. These recipes take into account a lot of the tips mentioned above so that you don't have to make so many adjustments.

❓ Recipe FAQs

📖 Recipe Card