Who doesn’t like dosas? Dosas come in wide variety of colours and textures. They can be soft, lacy, spongy, crispy, papery, porous and many more textures. Based on what you add, dosas can be golden brown like in the case of masala dosa owing its colour to methi seeds. So here we are making Kerala special appam with yeast or palappam with a soft lacy texture and white in colour due to coconut milk and rice flour.
Appam with yeast or palappam is made by grinding rice or using palappam flour (rice flour). Here I have used flour to make appam. Appam needs a fermentation agent like yeast or coconut. So appam with yeast clearly indicates that we are using yeast as the fermentation agent which gives them the soft lacy texture.
Appam with yeast or appams for that matter are made in an appam pan. It is a shallow rounded pan. The appam batter is poured in the centre and then the pan is swirled around to spread. The centre is soft and the sides are mostly lacy. Once you make the dough with the palappam flour it can be then ground into a batter with coconut milk after breaking the big lumps. Serve the appams with vegetable stew!
I have made a short video for making the appam (a very basic one) to give you an idea of making appam with yeast in the appam pan. Lastly I would like to remind my dear readers to check out more dosa recipes from FOI.
Neer Dosa
Baalehannina Dosa
Cabbage Dosa
Cucumber Neer Dosa
Ganji Dosa/Kalikanji Dosa
Uttapam – 3 ways
Red Rice Dosa
- 1 Cup palappam flour
- 2 Tsp instant yeast or 1¼ Tsp active dry yeast
- ¼ Cup thick coconut milk
- Water to make batter
- Salt to taste
- Sugar to taste
- Measure and take ¾ palappam flour into a bowl
- Add the remaining ¼ Cup into a small pan
- Pour ½ Cup water to make a thick batter, adjust consistency
- Bring this batter to heat and keep stirring
- The batter thickens and gathers into a lump
- Empty the thickened batter into the remaining palappam flour
- In a small bowl, add the yeast and sugar and little warm water, let it prove
- Next add salt to the palappam batter
- Empty the yeast mixture into the bowl
- Mix everything well
- Adjust water and make into a dough as shown
- Pour coconut milk on the dough
- Start breaking and mixing the dough
- Break the lumps very well, pulse in a mixer grinder if required to get a smooth batter
- Cover and ferment the batter overnight or 12 hours
- Heat an appam pan (not too deep nor flat), mix the batter and pour a small ladleful batter
- Swirl the appam pan as shown in video and refer to the pictures below
- Cover and cook the appam on low flame
- After 1-2 minutes the appam will be cooked
- Carefully remove the appam from the pan
- Serve hot with stew and/or chutney
Use non-stick appam pan if possible to make it easy to remove the pan, use appam pan only
Do not cook the appam on high flame, cook on low-medium flame so you can get a lacy soft appam
Appam With Yeast Stepwise:
Measure and take 3/4 palappam flour into a bowl
Add the remaining 1/4 Cup into a small pan
Pour 1/2 Cup water to make a thick batter, adjust consistency
Bring this batter to heat and keep stirring
The batter thickens and gathers into a lump
Empty the thickened batter into the remaining palappam flour
In a small bowl, add the yeast and sugar and little warm water, let it prove
Next add salt to the palappam batter
Empty the yeast mixture into the bowl
Mix everything well
Adjust water and make into a dough as shown
Pour coconut milk on the dough
Start breaking and mixing the dough
Break the lumps very well, pulse in a mixer grinder if required to get a smooth batter
Cover and ferment the batter overnight or 12 hours
Heat an appam pan (not too deep nor flat), mix the batter and pour a small ladleful batter
Swirl the appam pan as shown in video and refer to the pictures below
Cover and cook the appam on low flame
After 1-2 minutes the appam will be cooked
Carefully remove the appam from the pan
Serve hot with stew and/or chutney
