The Best Unniyappam (Sweet rice pancake puffs)

A sweet dish similar to pancake puffs made of rice and Jaggery.

Wish you all a very happy Onam and a wonderful time with your family and friends.

Unniyappam, the image of those fried sweet balls is sure to make you drool. If you have tried them once, then you will never forget the taste. I am yet to find someone who does not love this delicious snack.  My dad loved these. Mom always made these for Onam and Vishu (two very important festivals of Kerala). On top of that she made them whenever dad asked for it too. 

Many temples also offer unniyappam as offerings to the god. The temple most famous for unniyapppam is the kottarakkara Ganapathy kshethram. They are smaller in size comparatively but are so delicious that you will lose count of how many you ate. Easily you can pop two at time into your mouth. My brother-in-law visits this temple at least once in a month and never forgets to bring a big portion of this delicacy. If you are not fast enough, they will be gone within minutes. There is a very good write up on these beauties and kottarakara.

How it is made

The recipe I present here is one of the best as it my Mom’s version. Like I said in my about page, this is a recipe from scratch. Raw rice is soaked and ground with banana, jaggery and combined with powdered cardamom and fried coconut pieces and made in pan similar to the ones used to make aebleskiver. I have used a non stick pan here, Back home Mom used to make these in cast iron pan. The depressions are filled with oil and then the batter is poured into the hot oil. By using a non stick pan you can decide on the amount of oil used. However, you will not get that uniform deep brown color that you get with a cast iron.

You can also make this sweet with rice flour as in this recipe. Personally I prefer to make it from scratch.

Unniyappam (Sweet rice pancake puffs)

Urmila

A sweet dish similar to pancake puffs made of rice flour and jaggery.

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Prep Time 7 hours hrs 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 7 hours hrs 25 minutes mins

Course Snack

Cuisine Indian

Servings 30 nos.

Ingredients

  

• Rice-1 cup
• Banana-2 small or 1 big
• Jaggery-3/4 cup
• Baking soda-1/2 tsp optional
• Coconut pieces-1/4 cup
• Crushed cardamom-1 tsp
• Oil as required for frying

Instructions

 

• Soak the rice for at least 4 hrs and grind it with banana using very little water.
• Melt jaggery and add it to the batter along with soda and mix well.
• Keep it aside for 2-3 hrs.
• Fry the coconut pieces in a little oil until golden brown, drain and add it to the batter once cooled.
• Mix in the cardamom.
• Now heat a Unniyappam chatti with enough oil.
• Once hot, spoon the batter into the indentations and cook until the batter on top has set.
• Turn them over and cook for another few minutes.
• Drain on a paper towel.
• Enjoy!

Notes

After mixing the jaggery, if the batter is thin (it should be like the batter for idli or pancakes),
You can add some all purpose flour/Rava/ rice flour and adjust the consistency.
Instead of grinding the rice, you can drain the rice after 1 hr of soaking, dry it on a muslin cloth and powder it.
You could directly use rice flour too.
If you are not using baking soda, then rest the batter longer. Say for at least 6 hrs.
Unniyappam chatti or pan is usually made of cast iron. The indentations are completely filled with oil. the batter is poured into that oil when hot. That is why you see the unniyappams made in these to be uniformly browned. But now a days you also get non stick version of these pans. I believe Non resident Indians prefer buying these pans as they are light weight and easy to pack in your check-in bags. Color of Unniyappams made in these pans depends on the amount of oil you use.