Kalathappam is a desert or rice cake famous in North Malbar region of Kerala . It is very popular kannur and Tellechery  special tea time snack . It is prepared by rice , jaggery fried shallots and coconut flakes . Rice and jaggery makes up  the body of this cake with onions , cumin seeds , cardamom and coconut creating the exotic flavour . This was first time I had onion in dessert .  I prepared  this without onion also I like that version is more than this recipe . Traditionally it is cooked in ” Mankalam ” ( earthen cooking pot  ) with the help of coal in very low heat . Now a days to make the process easy we can cook in pressure cooker . There are two version of kalathappam sweeten and unsweetened . Today I am sharing the sweetened version which I adapted from some of cooking channels .

Ingredients :

1 . Sona masoori Rice – 1 cup .

2 . Jaggery – 250 gms – 300 gms .

3 . Cooked rice – 1 tbsp .

4 . Cumin seeds – 1 pinch .

5 . Baking soda – 1 pinch .

6 . Salt – 2 pinch .

7 . Finely chopped coconut – 2 tbsp .

8 . Shallots – 3  ( thinly sliced ) .

9 . Cardamom – 2 ( use only seeds ) .

10 . Coconut oil – 3 tbsp .

11 . Water – 1 1/2 cups .

Method :

1 . Soak rice for 3 – 4 hours and keep aside to drain  .

2 . Grind rice fine with 1 cup of water , boiled rice , cumin seeds, cardamom and salt . Transfer to a vessel  and add baking soda to the batter and stir well and keep aside .

3 . In a small pan add 1 tbsp of coconut oil and fry coconut flakes till golden brown colour and take it from pan keep aside .

4. Now in same pan add finely sliced shallots and fry till golden brown , take it from pan and keep aside .

5 . In a vessel add 1/2 cup of water and jaggery and let it melt in slow flame , stir in between . When it starts to boil and all jaggery melt well switch off the flame and pass the melted jaggery through a sieve .

6. Add this hot jaggery syrup to the batter , while pouring stir continuously . Add some fried shallots and coconut and mix well .

7. Heat the pressure cooker and add 2 tbsp of coconut oil . Once oil gets hot swirl the pan to coat the sides . Return the cooker to heat and pour the batter, do not stir . Sprinkle remain fried shallots and coconut on top of it . close the cooker , do not place the weight  . Cook on high flame for 1 1/2 minutes , very low the heat and cook for another 15 minutes .

8 . After 15 minutes open the lid and check the kalathappam by inserting a tooth pick. It should come out clean, else cook for another 2 – 3 minutes more .

9 . Switch off the flame , remove from the cook top and let it cool for 15 – 20 minutes .

10 . When cool run a knife through the edges and gently invert to a plate , and let it cool down completely .

11 . Cut into pieces and serve .

Note :

1. Use good quality of rice like jeerak sala , Sona masoori basmati etc .

2 . Sweetness of jaggery varies , in this recipe I used 250 gms of jaggery , yields lightly sweet appam . Add more if you have sweet tooth .

3 . Do not reduced the quantity of oil used , else it may stick to the bottom of cooker .

4 . Use small pressure cooker . I used 3 litre pressure cooker .

5 . Do not use stainless steel pressure cooker . In stainless steel pressure cooker the kalathappam may stick to the bottom of the cooker . Use aluminium cooker .