Karthigai Appam | Karthigai Deepam Sweet Appam | Vella appam

Karthigai Appam is a very traditional and delicious sweet appam variety made during Karthigai deepam festival in Tamil Nadu. It is made with raw rice, jaggery and banana as main ingredients. This appam can be cooked in ghee too and it is called nei appam (nei in Tamil-ghee ).You can cook the Karthigai appam directly by deep frying in oil or you can use Kuzhi paniyaram chatti to make these appams which makes the process easier. Check out how to make traditional Karthigai deepam appam recipe below.

Ingredients

Raw rice-1 cup (washed and soaked for 2 hours)

Powdered Jaggery-3/4 cup

Cardamom powder-1/4 tsp

Ripe Banana-1 no medium sized

Grated coconut-1 Tbsp

Oil for deep frying

Recipe Video

Method

👉Wash and soak the raw rice for 2 hours,drain the water completely and transfer the rice to mixie jar.

👉Dissolve jaggery in 1/2 cup water and heat it until the jaggery dissolves completely.

👉Strain the jaggery and allow it to cool completely.

👉Now add cardamom powder,banana,grated coconut to the raw rice in the mixie jar and grind it first.

👉Next pour required amount of jaggery syrup and grind to a smooth fine paste.

👉Transfer this paste to a bowl,add the remaining jaggery syrup if the batter is too thick and mix well and make a thick dosa batter consistency.

👉Set the batter aside for 1/2 to 1 hour.If the batter is thin add rice flour or wheat flour and adjust consistency.

👉Heat oil for deep frying and once hot keep in medium flame throughout.

👉Now pour a small ladle full of the batter gently into the oil in the centre.

👉Do not disturb it for few seconds. It will puff up like poori and float on top of the oil.

👉Cook both sides by flipping occassionally.

👉Remove the appam once the oil stops bubbling and colour changes to golden brown.

Serve.

Preparation Time - 2 hours for soaking and 30 mins for cooking

Yield-16 -18 appams

Note-

*You can add 1 -2 Tbsps of wheat flour too.

*You can use rice flour instead of raw rice.

*If the batter becomes too watery add rice flour or wheat flour and adjust consistency.

*Donot use water for grinding.

*Only if the consistency of the batter is correct the appam will puff up perfectly otherwise it will be flat and stick to the bottom of the kadai.So be cautious about the consistency.

*Cook in medium flame only.

*Cook only one appam at a time if you pour 2 or 3 appams they will stick together.