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I live at 5,000 ft (Reno, NV), and have had problems with recipes that require bringing a sugar syrup of some sort to a particular temperature. (I had a very sad fudge frosting disaster recently.) From what I've found online, the advice seems to be that you should drop your target temperature by 2 deg. F. for every thousand feet of elevation, due to the lower boiling point at higher altitudes. Can anyone verify that this works? 

I was just looking at this recipe for https: https://ww.seriouseats.c...shortbread-cookie-recipe. 

1) It says to bring the caramel mixture to 235 deg F. Should I be changing this to 225 deg?

2) It also calls for tempering the chocolate. I don't need to change those temperatures, do I? My (very basic) understanding is that tempering chocolate involves manipulating the crystalline structure in chocolate at specific target temperatures well below the boiling point, and this process shouldn't be affected by the boiling point or air pressure. 

Any advice would be appreciated! 

P.S. Can I just briefly complain about how few cookbook authors pay even token attention to altitude challenges? I roll my eyes whenever I see recipes that do things like specify putting eggs in boiling water for x minutes, because those instructions are totally useless for me (and a whole of others who do not live at or near sea level). 

Coincidentally MollyB, we have just added a book tag of High Altitude to cover books that address your issues. There aren't many books with the tag yet, just those with "altitude" in the title, so if you know of any others, please do let us know so we can add the tag.

Hi, I live in Colorado - at almost 6,000 feet. I find this article helps. I have made recipes from this book with success. 

Joy of Cooking, in both the 6th edition and the 2019 edition (I assume other versions, but I only own these two), address high altitude cooking several times, and has a section with high altitude specific cake recipes, and how to make adjustments for other things like breads, cookies, canning, pressure cooking and vegetables. 

For candy making, Joy of Cooking (2019) says to cook sugar syrup 1 degree lower than indicated in the recipe for every 500' increase above sea level (which matches the number given in Jenny's link).

Jenny, thanks for the link to the CSU Extension article about candy making. It matches what I've been reading. So I think I'll give my caramel recipe a shot with those adjustments! 

I am also happy to hear about the new tag for cookbooks that address high altitude cooking. It's interesting that they're largely focused on baking (which admittedly is a challenge), and that there's relatively little coverage of other areas where altitude has an impact on recipes, like adjusting times for something like boiling eggs or pressure cooking. I looked around on the CSU Extension site, and they also have a good article on high altitude pressure cooking.