In a break with tradition, we made waffles instead of pancakes yesterday. I have photographed our waffle maker. You plug it in so that the inside top and bottom surfaces heat up. Then you pour in a ladle full of batter. You drop the lid down so that it spreads out on the hot surfaces. It got me thinking about the method of heat transfer. The surfaces are touching the batter so it must be by conduction. It takes a couple of minutes to cook through because the batter is not a particularly good conductor. There is no air space inside to allow for convection or heat radiation. It is possible that there will be a small amount of convection from the bottom surface into the batter at first whilst it is still liquid but once it has cooked enough to solidify thermal energy can only be transferred by conduction.
