Help!! I live in the Austin, TX area and we just rented a cabin in Yellowstone and I thought everyone would really enjoy my recipe for biscuits and milk gravy for breakfast. Well, my biscuits burned and were rock hard. What did I do wrong? I have made this recipe a million times and have never had a problem. Was it the altitude?

Ginger

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Hi Ginger--

Being that Yellowstone is a thermal hot-pot of activity, perhaps everything just bakes faster there. No . . . I'm sure altitude did come into play while visiting Yellowstone. With an average altitude of 8000 feet, Yellowstone truly soars above Austin's 541 feet. Here are some tips for baking biscuits in mountainous areas. Lower humidity and pressure cause the dough to dry out faster. Remedy this by adding 1 tablespoon milk per cup of flour in your biscuit recipe. To counteract fast-rising, again due to low pressure, decrease the amount of leavening (baking powder or baking soda) by 1/4 tsp for every teaspoon leavening called for in the recipe.

If these tricks don't help, consider that your cabin's oven may be old, unfamiliar, and over-heating. Did you pack your oven thermometer? Nothing for it, then, but to stop watching the buffalo graze and keep a close eye on those biscuits instead.

Hope this helps and that you enjoy the rest of your Yellowstone Adventure.

Happy Cook'n!