Ingredients:
• Rice – 2 cups (420 grams)
• Water – to soak the Rice
• Water – enough to grind to a pancake batter
• Cooked Brown Rice – 1 cup (185 grams)
• Freshly Grated Coconut – 1 cup (about 100 grams)
• Rice Flour – 2 tbsp
• Water – 100 ml
• Allinson Dried active yeast – 7 grams (21/2 tsp)
• Brown sugar – 1 tbsp
• Lukewarm Water (36 – 40 degrees C) – 20 ml
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – 10 ml
Method:
- Soak the washed rice in water overnight (at least 8 hours) prior to grinding.
- Prepare the rice paste by bringing 100 ml water to boil (reduce flame to medium) and adding the 2 tbsp rice flour and stir continuously till you reach a thick creamy paste.
- Keep aside till required.
- In a 500ml size bowl or glass, take 20ml lukewarm water and dissolve the brown sugar.
- Sprinkle the yeast, cover with a cling film and leave it for 15-20 minutes until it becomes creamy and bubbly.
- Grind the rice to a smooth paste adding water, in batches. In the last batch add grated coconut, cooked rice and the rice paste and grind to a smooth paste. By adding rice paste at this stage it prevents lumps and evenly spreads through the dough.
- Fold in the yeast to the rice dough carefully. Care must be taken here, as the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast is what allows your dough to rise.
- Do not add salt at this stage.
- Cover and leave for 24 hours to rise (This is enough in hot countries, but in colder regions heat your oven to a temperature of 30C and leave it in.
- It is ideal to have a basic kitchen timer in hand. Set it to 4 minutes.
- Add salt to taste, to the dough, mix well.
- Heat appam pan and apply a light coat of oil, take ¾ ladle dough, pour it in the centre and spread it in clockwise motion to make a neat circle.
- Set timer to 4 minutes till the edges have become golden crisp and start lifting off the wok. The centre should be soft and spongy. A well-fermented batter will form small lacy holes all over the appam while cooking.
- Repeat for each appam. It is faster to have 2 pans going at the same time.