The Unexpected Way You Can Lighten Up Batter

Whether you're baking cakes, frying some seafood, or making the family some homemade pancakes on Saturday morning, you'll probably find yourself making and working with different kinds of batter. Here at Mashed, we're fans of it all, knowing that batter is a key component for a lot of delicious foods. But working with batter isn't for the faintest of heart, as a number of problems can come up. Whether it's too thick, too watery, over mixed, or under mixed, it seems like getting the perfect consistency of batter is harder than it seems.

We already dove into a number of batter rules and hacks, including the pancake batter rule, the biggest mistakes you can make with fish batter, a hack to prevent over mixing batter, and even Gordon Ramsay's secret ingredient for fish batter. But those were all specific to each kind of batter. What if there was a way to lighten up all of your batters without worrying about the specific kind? Thankfully, there actually is.

Did you think carbonated water was only for drinking? Think again. If you enjoy sipping La Croix or any other carbonated water beverage while baking in the kitchen, make sure to save a little bit for your batter next time. According to Reader's Digest, you can actually lighten up just about any kind of batter with a little splash of carbonated water. What's cool about this hack is that it's easily customizable depending on what results you want. 

Non-flavored carbonated water added to any batter mixture will naturally make the batter more light and airy, making it perfect for pancakes or waffles. If you want to get fun with it, try adding flavored carbonated water to your batter. Fruit flavors like lemon, lime, orange, and strawberry could be great in more sweet and dessert-based batters. Additionally, adding carbonated water will also enhance your frying and tempura batters, making whatever you fry extra crispy (via Fresh Direct).