Why does my batter not stay crispy?

[irridium]

To make onion rings or fried fish. I use just egg, water and either self-raising or plain flour and coat the item sparingly. In a hot pan of oil, I dip the item in, it crisps up nicely but when it comes out of the pan, the batter goes all wrinkly and soft. What am I doing wrong?

Don't use egg - flour, bit of salt, baking powder and then either sparkling water or beer to mix and you are done!

I agree, no egg. The best batter I've made was it's flour and beer. It was so crispy and we had loads of scraps too. I have to batter sausages for my dd when we get a chippy dinner as she is allergic to dairy and the batter mix they use has dairy in it, annoyingly.

Oh, well, I was doing it all wrong after all these decades of cooking!! I thought pancake batter is the same for fried fish or onion rings. Thanks to you both. I'll trial it out on my family next time!

Pancake batter is pancake batter, not frying batter 🙂

I make beer batter in the pub where I work. It's a mixture of beer/Guiness, soda water & flour - definitely no egg