Vattayappam - Steamed rice cakes from Kerala

I first tasted these fluffy rice cakes when my ex-boss got them in her lunch box. She said her mom made them with ground rice and yeast and it is quite simple. Several google searches later, trying all possible spellings, I landed on this recipe given by a forum member of Forum Hub, which was dug out from the Hindu archives. You will also find a discussion on Vattayappam on the Another Subcontinent food forum.

Kerala cuisine does have a variety of appams apart from this one, which I learnt while researching through several forums - Kallapam, Palappam, Vellayappam, Frill Appam - if anybody would like to clarify the differences, it would be really nice!

This is a typical Kerala Christian recipe and it seemed pretty simple and armed with the potent yeast (yeast is to be used in absence of toddy) that Anita was so kind to send me - I was wanting to try it out for a real long time. It took me several months to make up my mind to try this out because each recipe on the net had different ingredients (eggs, cumin, shallots, coconut milk and so on) in different quantities! I am not quite game to using shallots in a sweetish dish and hence steered clear of any recipes including them. Since I did not recall my boss mentioning presence of eggs in the recipe, such recipes were out too. Finally the one I tried had simple ingredients which seemed right and JFI Rice was a perfect occasion to try it out.

For breakfast- vattayappam wedges cut into small cubes-

microwaved with 1/2 cup milk and some raisins

Vattayappam / Vatteyappam (Steamed rice cakes)

Category: Gluten free, steamed cake, breakfast

Serves- 4

Adapted from a recipe from The Hindu Archives - here.

Ingredients

1 heaped cup raw rice - washed and soaked for 3-4 hours
1/2 coconut - scraped /grated
100 ml water
Scant 1 tsp instant dry yeast OR 15 ml fresh toddy
1/4 cup sugar
a fat pinch cardamom powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp raisins (optional)

Directions

1. Drain the soaked rice . Grind to a fine paste with coconut.

2. Add yeast or toddy, sugar and let it ferment for 6-8 hours.

3. Add salt & cardamom powder and keep aside for 30 minutes.

4. Grease flat containers or cooker separators (2) & pour in the batter. Garnish with sultanas if using. Steam for 15-20 minutes, and cut into wedges and serve.


Note
Idli steamers can be used to get idli-shaped vattayappams.

This is my submission for JFI- Rice hosted by Sharmi of Neivedyam, JFI has been conceived by Indira of Mahanandi