Engineering a Dinner

We had people over for dinner. Jim made the main dish, I made a salad, and to keep things easy and low key, I decided to make brownies for dessert. I got a Betty Crocker mix.

I discovered I would need a few things to get started:

1. A Spanish dictionary
2. My glasses -- the high altitude instructions were in tiny print
3. An engineering degree to figure out high altitude impacts on baked brownies

We live at 7,000 feet now. The air is noticeably thinner here and the lower pressure means baked goods rise faster, dry out quicker, and lose structure. To keep them from collapsing or crumbling, you need more liquids, less leavening, not as much sugar, less egg beating, more time in the oven, and / or higher temperatures. Whew.

The box instructions only adjusted for liquids.

I get why recipes need more liquid, and I understand about less sugar -- since the mixture is drier, the sugars get concentrated, and that makes for a weak structure, which will collapse. Less egg beating seems intuitive in lower air pressure, since they get too frothy and too full of air.

But the baking times or temperatures weren't clear. The best advice on timing or oven setting is to experiment.

Of course experimenting when you are expecting guests is unwise. On top of that, I made cream cheese brownies -- a recipe I've made at sea level for decades. You beat a batter of cream cheese and sugar and egg and swirl it in to the chocolate batter before baking.

That was another set of adjustments -- how much less sugar to beat into the cream cheese? How much to beat the eggs?

In the end, the brownies took 6 minutes longer to bake than the longest time on the box. The sides overbaked and they rose up like I've never seen brownies do, then they fell back down and the crust cracked a bit.

They came out fine. They're brownies, for heaven's sake. The edges are always too done and the middle is too fudgy and it never matters under a scoop of ice cream.

Dinner was a success.