Batters are essentially a suspension of flour and liquid designed to coat, bind, puff, crisp, or set when cooked. Tiny changes in ratio, flour type, temperature, mixing, or leavening completely change the result.

Understanding batter properly makes cooking far more intuitive because suddenly tempura, Yorkshire puddings, pancakes, fried chicken, dosa and waffles all start to make sense as variations of the same principles.

The core structure of a batter

Almost every batter contains some combination of:

• flour or starch
• liquid
• sometimes eggs
• sometimes fat
• sometimes leavening
• salt/seasoning

The balance determines:

• crispness
• chewiness
• fluffiness
• elasticity
• richness
• browning
• structural strength

Thin vs thick batters

Thin batters