I have lived in Colorado (near Utah) most of my life. One of the baking facts of life here is that any flour, no matter how it is packaged, dries out very quickly in the box or bag. Our climate is just much drier than the Eastern US. So when I bake I sometimes add a little water or other liquid to the recipe to make up for the lost water. Now, this is by the seat of the pants and will take some experimentation, kind of like the research done here. For example, the pie crusts I learned to make from my grandmother in Missouri needed almost 1.5 times the water and a little more shortening to work well at this altitude and dryness. It took some experimenting to get the proportions right. Be sure to record your experiments so you know what works!

• Reply