Baking and baking are essential in a commercial kitchen. You use many different batters and doughs every day, whether you own a bakery, pizzeria or Japanese restaurant. Although you might know that you need to make the batter and proof it, what do you know about batter and how it differs from other batters? We will explain the differences in batters and doughs, the difference between batter and batter, and the different battery types.

Difference between Batter and Dough

There is a difference between batter and bread. Doughs contain eggs, and batters are thinner and can contain more eggs. Batter and dough are different. You will make batters and loaves of bread with different ingredients and consistencies. Below are the differences between doughs and batters.

Dough vs. Batter: Egg Content

  • Batters need eggs.
  • Doughs do not have to be made with eggs.

Dough vs. Batter: Mixing

  • Doughs can be used for rolling and kneading.
  • Mixing batter ingredients by whipping them up is called “”.

Dough vs. Batter: How to Work With Each

  • Pastries, pie crusts, and pasta can all be made from dough.
  • To drop batters onto baking pans or grills, you can use a spoon or pour them. Batters can also be used as a pre-fry topping.

What is Batter?

A batter is a mixture of flour, eggs, and liquids that you can’t knead. The French word battre means ‘to beat’. To make batters, beat/whisk the ingredients together. Based on their use, culinary professionals divide batters into three types: drop batter, pour batter, and coating batter.

Drop Batter

Drop batters can easily be dropped from a spoon and not run. Drop batters are normally made with a two-part flour to one-part liquid mixture.

Drop Batter Examples:

  1. Muffins
  2. Cakes
  3. Drop Biscuits
  4. Cookies
  5. Hush Puppies
  6. Dumplings

You will need to create batters and doughs to open a donut shop.

Pour Batter

Pour batters are pourable and have a fluid consistency. Pour batters, unlike drop batters, run when dropped from the spoon. Pour batters typically have a one-to-one liquid-to flour ratio.

Pour Batter Examples:

  1. Pancakes
  2. Waffles
  3. Crepes
  4. Funnel Cakes

Coating Batter

A coating batter is a food coating used to cook items for deep-frying, shallow frying, and flat top grill quick cooking. Coating batters can be as simple as a mixture of liquid, flour, or meal. However, chefs add eggs and seasonings to enhance the flavor of their batter.

From battered cod in English beer and Southern cornmeal battered catfish to Japanese tempura vegetables or all-American onion rings. Battering is a common food preparation technique.

Coating Batter Examples:

  1. Beer Batter
  2. Tempura Batter
  3. Cornmeal Batter
  4. Plain Batter

What is Dough?

The dough is, at its core, a mixture of flour/meal with a liquid. To make the dough, you can use any flour or meal. Milk and water are the most commonly used liquids for making dough. Doughs are easy to roll and knead because they have flexible consistency. Although dough should hold its form, you can adjust the fluid to flour/meal ratio to make it soft or stiff. Below are the ratios of soft and stiff doughs.

Stiff Dough

1 cup of liquid to 4 cups of flour/meal

A stiff dough should feel firm but be easy to knead on a lightly floured surface.

Stiff dough Examples:

  1. Scones
  2. Pizza Crusts
  3. Cookies

Soft Dough

1 cup of liquid to 3 cups of flour/meal

Soft doughs can still retain their forms but are more malleable and easier to work with.

Soft Dough Example:

  1. Rolls
  2. Biscuits
  3. Yeasted Doughnuts

Top Leavened vs. Unleavened

Although there are many types, we can generally categorize them as leavened dough or unleavened dough.

Leavened Definition

Baked goods that are leavened include those made with a leavening agent (or raising agent). There are two types of leavening agents: chemical and natural. Natural leavening agents include fermented yeasts and starters for sourdough. They provide rich flavor but are labor-intensive and time-consuming.

Baking soda, baking powder and other chemical leavening agents are common. Because they are quicker than making bread with natural leavening agents, we call them “quick loaves of bread”.

Unleavened Definition

Unleavened refers to baked goods without a leavening agent. Unleavened doughs won’t rise when baked. Flatbreads, pasta, crackers and tortillas are all examples of doughs that do not require a leavening agent.

The broadest category of unleavened sweet bread is the short dough. The short dough is a type of unleavened sweet dough with a higher fat content than flour. They are usually unleavened (unraised span) to achieve the desired consistency of short dough.

But not all high-fat doughs can be considered short doughs. However, buttery and yeasted brioche doughs don’t count as short doughs. High-fat laminated doughs also aren’t considered short doughs.

What is Laminated Dough?

Laminated dough is made with thin layers of butter and dough. Lamination involves the process of rolling layers of butter and dough together and developing the flour’s Gluten. Because the layers of fat and dough must be very thin, it requires skillful hands.

Laminate doughs are lighter than dense short doughs that have large amounts of butter in their dough. The laminated dough’s layers of butter and dough trap steam during baking, which causes the layers to rise. Laminated doughs baked in the oven have many flaky layers.

Laminated doughs do not require a leavening ingredient to rise. However, you can add leavening agents to your laminated dough to create a chewy texture. Below are the top three laminated doughs:

Croissant Dough

  • Laminated flour
  • yeast
  • milk
  • salt
  • sugar

Danish Pastry Cake

  • Laminated flour
  • water
  • salt
  • yeast
  • eggs

Pastry Dough

  • Laminated flour
  • water
  • salt

Laminated dough:

These are the basic steps to making laminated dough:

  1. Form your dough into a rectangle.
  2. Spread a layered butter.
  3. Roll your dough on itself and place the butter layer inside.
  4. It would be best if you now had a rectangle of three layers with a butter layer sandwiched between the two layers of dough.
  5. Fold your three-layered rectangle into thirds.
  6. Repeat the previous step two more times.
  7. Make pastries from your laminated dough.

Non-Laminated Dough

Non-laminated doughs are made with fat creamed into the flour rather than layered on top. Non-laminated doughs won’t flake if you don’t fold them on top of each other. Both leavened and non-laminated with no added yeast are available. Non-laminated doughs are common and include Choux pastry doughs, pie crust doughs, short doughs.