Vattayappam Recipe Steamed Rice Cake Kerala Style

Vattayappam Recipe

I wanted to make this recipe for a long time. Finally I made it few days back. This particular recipe is super easy to make since it used rice flour. I made this less sweet and served it with Kuttanadan chicken curry. But you can add more sugar and serve it as a snack.

About Vattayappam

Vattayappam is a delicious steamed rice cake made with soaked rice, coconut, cooked rice, salt, sugar and yeast. The batter is allowed to ferment before pouring in small shallow moulds and steamed. This is popular in and around Kerala and served specially during Christmas or Easter. This version of Kerala style vattayappam recipe made using rice flour cooked rice and it can be made instantly. This particular recipe taste amazing and is super easy to make. If you are hearing about this recipe for the first time. This is similar to our aapam. But it is steamed in a pan which is round so it is called as vattayappam. It is served with any spicy curries like Palakkad chicken curry, mutton curry or even beef. You can serve appam with Egg Korma or Egg Pulusu or any spicy gravy. But the best combo is with Amma Varutharacha Urulai Kilangu Korma.

Vattayappam Ingredients

Rice - I used rice flour for making vattayappam batter. But you can soak rice and grind it into a paste and use. But using rice flour is fast and convenient. I have mentioned how to make vattayappam using soaked rice in my variations. Coconut - coconut is ground and added to the batter to make it soft and it provides coconut flavour. Cooked Rice - cooked rice is added in the batter, which helps soften vattayappam when steaming. You can use red rice or white rice of choice. Salt & Sugar - these are to taste. But you can add more or less sugar to the batter depending on how sweet you want vattayappam to be. Yeast & Baking Powder- this helps in fermenting the batter and make soft and spongy vattayappam. I didn’t use baking powder. But if you want you can add a pinch of baking powder.

How to Make Vattayappam at Home (3 Easy Steps)

Make Batter - Take rice flour in a bowl, add water and mix well. Set aside. Add in cooked rice and coconut in a blender and grind to a smooth paste. Add rice flour mixture, salt, sugar, yeast and grind well. Fermenting - Pour this into a bowl. The batter has to be little thick like idli batter. Now cover and let this ferment for 3 to 4 hours. Steaming - Mix the batter once. Pour this in a greased pan and steam for 30 mins. Remove and cool for 5 mins. Now un mould and serve with chicken curry.

How to Make Vattayappam (Stepwise Pictures)

Rice Flour Batter

1)Take rice flour in a bowl. I am using readymade store bought rice flour. You can use homemade or store bought as per your preference. 2)Pour over some water on the rice flour. We are going to dehydrate the rice flour. 3)Mix this well and set aside for 10 minutes for the rice flour to absorb the water. Meanwhile we can prepare the other things.

Preparing Steaming Mould

4)For steaming vattayappam. You can use any wide plate or baking pan. I am using a round baking pan. There are vattayappam moulds available in the market, you can use one of those as well. But any wide container is great for vattayappam.

Making Coconut Paste

5)Take freshly grated coconut in a blender. We are going to grind the coconut. If you don’t have fresh coconut, you can use frozen coconut as well. 6)Add in some cooked rice. You can use kerala red rice or regular rice. Cooked cold rice can be used as well. Pro Tip: Adding cooked rice makes soft vattayappam. 7)Add some water and grind it into a smooth puree.

Making Vattayappam Batter

8)Add the rice flour paste into the ground rice and coconut batter. 9)Add sugar to taste. If you are planning to serve this with chicken or savoury curries, I recommend to add less sugar. If you are serving this as a snack with tea or coffee, you can add extra sugar to make it sweet. Optionally you can sprinkle some raisins on top. 10)Add salt to taste. 11)Add in some dry yeast over the rice flour batter. 12)Blend this till smooth and creamy. This is your vattayappam batter.

Fermenting Batter

13)Pour the ground batter in a large mixing bowl for fermenting. 14)Ground rice coconut batter for vattayappam is ready. Make sure the batter is not too thick or too thin. It has to be similar to dosa batter. Now cover the bowl with a lid and allow the batter to ferment for 3 to 4 hours. The batter will foam up and rise. 15)This is what a fermented batter would look like. It would have risen a lot which is why it is important to use a large container. 16)Look at all those bubbles. These are fermented. 17)Now Divide the batter in the greased mould. We can make two to 3 vattayapam from this mixture.

Steaming Vattayappam

18)Divide the batter between few greased moulds for steaming. Place it inside a steamer and steam cook the vattayappam for few minutes. 19)I used my bamboo steamer for steaming this. You can use idli steamer too.

Serving Vattayappam

20)Once vattayappam is steamed, remove it from steamer and let it sit in the mould for 5 minutes. Now carefully un mould from the mould. 21)Place it on a serving platter. 22)Cut it into pieces and serve.

Vattayappam with Soaked Rice

Making vattayappam with soaked rice is easy. The recipe remains the same, but with slight modifications. Fermenting time will vary and also the quantity needs slight modifications.

Ingredients

1 cup Rice (soaked for 5 hours) ½ cup Coconut ¼ cup Cooked rice 2 cups Water 1 tsp Yeast 2 tbsp Sugar

For every 1 cup of soaked rice, you need ¼ cup of cooked rice, ½ cup coconut. Soak rice for 5 hours. Then grind with cooked rice, coconut, water, 1 tsp yeast, 2 tbsp sugar, and salt. Cover and ferment for 7 to 8 hours. Make vattayappam as usual.

Variations

Sweet Vattayappam

For Sweet version of vattayappam. You add ¼ cup of sugar to the batter. You can even increase it to ½ cup. When grinding the batter add ½ tsp cardamom powder and ½ tsp roasted cumin powder. Pour the fermented batter in mould. Sprinkle top with some raisins before steaming and steam as usual. This version of sweet vattayappam can be served as snack with tea or coffee.

Steamed Rice Cake (Chinese)

I have shared a steamed Chinese rice cake recipe on this blog earlier which is made with rice, salt, sugar and yeast.

More Kerala Delicacies

Orappam - A delicious kerala delicacy which is easy to make and taste absolutely delicious. Orappam is a rice flour halwa kind of sweet which has coconut milk and coconut oil in them. Then it is baked till it has a crusty top and bottom in them. Vellayappam - Soft and spongy palappam recipe made with rice flour, coconut milk and yeast. This soft vellayappam or kallappam taste amazing. Traditional Appam - Appam also called as hoppers is made using raw rice, coconut, sugar, coconut milk and salt. Batter made using raw rice is fermented and made into spongy appam. Sometimes yeast, cooked rice or cooking soda is added for fermentation.

Expert Tips

Usually vattayappam is made with soaked rice which is ground to a paste and then fermented. This is fast instant version. Don’t add too much yeast it may give sour taste. If you over steam it may get dry. Store steamed vattayappam in a casserole to keep warm.

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