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French Batter
619. Pour half a teacupful of boiling water on an ounce and a quarter of butter, and when melted add three times as much of cold water so that the chill will be just off. Mix the above by degrees and very smoothly, with five ounces of well dried flour, a very little pinch of salt, if for fruit, but double the quantity if the batter is to be served with meat or vegetables; and at the moment it is wanted mix in the white of one egg beaten to a fine froth. This is excellent for fruit fritters or frying with meat or vegetables.
A light frying batter of the type French cooks call pâte à frire: butter and water worked into flour, with a whipped egg white folded in at the last second. It is thinner than an English pancake batter and fries to a blistered, crisp shell rather than a bready coating.
- The hinge: fold the white in at the last momentThe batter can be mixed hours ahead, but the beaten white must go in immediately before frying, in one gentle folding motion. Beat it in early or stir it hard and the air collapses, leaving a heavy coating.
- The teacupfulA Victorian teacupful is usually reckoned at about 4 to 5 fl oz (120-150 ml), smaller than a modern mug. An ounce and a quarter of butter is about 35 g; five ounces of flour is about 140 g, or a generous cup.
- The water quantity is ambiguous"Three times as much of cold water" reads most naturally as three times the boiling water, which on a 4 fl oz teacup gives about 8 fl oz of liquid to 140 g of flour, a thin batter. It may instead mean three times the volume of butter. Start with the smaller amount and thin by degrees until the batter coats a spoon and runs off in a ribbon.
- "Well dried flour"Flour was once stored near damp and was warmed or dried by the fire before use. Modern bagged flour needs none of this; sift it and move on.
- Chill off the waterAdding cold water to the melted butter leaves the mixture lukewarm rather than hot; the likely point is to keep the fat evenly dispersed and avoid scalding the flour. Aim for barely warm to the finger.
- Salt"A very little pinch" for sweet fritters, roughly 1/8 teaspoon; double it for meat or vegetables. Neither amount is enough to season the food inside, so salt that separately.
- Frying temperatureDeep fat at 350-375F (175-190C). Below that the thin batter soaks; much above it and the butter in the batter browns before the interior sets.
- Mixing methodAdd the liquid to the flour gradually and beat smooth at each stage, as directed. Adding it all at once gives lumps that no amount of later beating will clear without toughening the batter.
"French batter" appears in Victorian English cookbooks alongside the native pancake batter of eggs, flour and milk, and differs from it in using no milk and no yolks, with a whipped white for lift. Scalding the butter with boiling water before letting the mixture down with cold water is a way of getting the fat evenly dispersed without an emulsifier, and the same logic is at work in modern beer and soda-water batters, where the aim is again a thin, quick-setting shell. That one batter is offered for both fruit fritters and savoury frying, adjusted only by the amount of salt, fits a period in which cooks worked from a small number of base preparations.