Hummingbird High is a baking blog created by Michelle, a baker, blogger, and photographer. She started the blog in 2011 when she moved to Denver, Colorado, as a way to share her recipes with friends who lived far away and to escape from the stress of her corporate job. At the time, she was struggling to bake successfully at high altitudes. Michelle found that baking at high altitude was entirely different from baking at sea level, with various quirks like water boiling at different temperatures and significantly lower air pressure that affected the baking time and amount of leaven needed in recipes.
To learn how to adapt recipes to work at high altitudes, Michelle decided to bake through her favorite cookbook, The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. She documented her attempts, trials, errors, and eventual successes on her blog. She approached her project like a crash course in pastry school, examining every failure and success from a scientific lens. She gained a deep understanding of how ingredients work together and realized how much she had taken the baking process for granted her entire life. Her blog became a record of her baking adventures, filled with consistent and delicious results that she achieved through dedication and hard work. Michelle's scientific approach to baking provided her with invaluable insights into the chemistry of baking, and her readers were able to learn from her successes and failures.