Unniappam

Today finally I succeeded in making unniappam. This was my third attempt and I am so happy. This is my favourite sweet. My mom makes delicious unniappams. Ok in my mom and dad's place this sweet is called neiappam. But I got to know that in most parts of Kerala this sweet is called unniappam and there is another sweet in the name of neiappam which I haven't tried yet.



In my first attempt the appams were very hard and in my second attempt the appams were sticking to the appa chatti. Chatti in malayalam means pan. Appa chatti is a heavy bottomed pan which has small rounds within like that of egg tray. In Tamil Nadu side this is also known as paniyaram chatti. We need to pour the batter in these rounds to get small sweet appams. "Unni" in malayalam means small. Hence the name unniappam.

Karthigai is approaching and Unniappams are a part of the sweets made on this day. So celebrate this Karthigai with these yummy appams.




Ingredients:

Raw Rice – 1 cup
Powdered Jaggery – 1 cup
Coconut – ¼ cup, cut into small pieces (optional)
Green Cardamom/Elaichi – 4 to 5
Blach till seeds - 1 teaspoon
Oil/ghee for frying



Method:

• Wash and soak the rice in water for 3-4 hours. 
• Grind the rice by adding as little water as possible. The batter should be very soft and thick.
• Now slowly add the powdered jaggery and keep grinding. Transfer into a bowl.
• Keep this batter aside for a hour or two.
• In a small kadai heat 1 spoon of ghee. Fry the till seeds and coconut and add this to the batter. Add the cardamom powder and Mix well. The batter should be of pouring consistency, not too tight or too runny. Add water if necessary.
• Heat a paniyaaram pan / appa chatti, fill 3/4 of each groove with a mixture of oil and ghee. Let the oil get heated.
• Now pour small ladleful of batter into each of grooves, flip over after a minute. Let this cook on low heat till a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• I had a bronze appa chatti so it was enough for me to have it in low heat. For others medium heat should suffice.
• Insert the skewer into each of the appams and transfer them onto a paper towel.

Yummy UNNIAPPAMS are ready!!!




Lessons I learnt:

• Try your best to grind jaggery and rice. The first 2 times I made a paste of jaggery and mixed it with rice flour/ rice batter which didn't work out.
• The consistency of the batter is very important to get soft appams. The batter should be of dosai batter consistency. Adjust consistency by adding water. If it is very tight, the appams will be very hard. If it is loose the appams will drink oil.
• The appams should not stick to the pan. After pouring the batter after about 2-3 minutes, the appams should leave the edge of the pan and start rotating in the oil.
• The appams generally become more soft after 2-3 hours.
• We can also add a banana in this batter but my mom never adds. So I just followed her steps.