My mother always soaked raw rice and made an appam. I always took the shortcut and used rice flour and wheat flour to make the sweet appam. This is not different from that, except we use soaked and ground thinai / foxtail millet along with rice flour and wheat flour. Inippu Paniyaram or Sweet Paniyaram also called Sweet Appam, is one of my boys’ favorite snacks and festival food. Anytime, I make the sweet appam, I have to make quite a bit as it is never enough for them. That is when I thought about experimenting with whole grains to make this appam and came up with the idea to make Thinai Sweet Paniyaram or Foxtail Millet Sweet Paniyaram. I followed the exact same recipe as my regular sweet appam, except fermented this batter. When I read various recipes online, it said to ferment the batter for at least 2 to 3 hours to make it softer. I left the batter to rest for about 4 hours and then made the paniyarams. I also added banana and coconut to the batter. The boys saw no difference between the regular and this one and is definitely a great way to include whole grains in the diet. I bought the Bob’s Red Mill Millet. It does not specify what kind of millet it is and I recognized it based on the appearance. For this BM, I have been using quite a bit of new grains like Farro, Barley flour, and amaranth flour. Foxtail millet is the 4th new whole grain that I am trying out. Preparation time - 10 minutes plus 2 hours of soaking time and 3 - 4 hours resting timeCooking time - about 5 minutes per batchDifficulty level - EasyRecipe adapted from - Rak’s Kitchen
Ingredients to make Thinai Sweet Paniyaram - makes around 24
Thinai / Foxtail millet - 1 cup Rice flour - ¼ cup Wheat flour - ¼ cup Coconut - ½ cup (grated) Jaggery - 1 cup Banana - 1 large (mashed) Ghee and oil - 3 to 4 TBSP Salt - ¼ tsp Baking soda - ½ tsp
Procedure to make Foxtail Millet Sweet Paniyaram -
Wash the thinai / foxtail millet and soak it in water for at least 2 hours. Drain the water and place the millet in the blender. Add just enough water to grind it into a smooth paste. Add the powdered jaggery, rice flour, and wheat flour in the blender as well and grind it to a smooth batter. Remove the batter to a bowl and add the coconut, cardamom powder, salt, and the mashed banana. Mix well and let it sit for 3 to 4 hours. I added the jaggery directly to the blender, but if your jaggery has impurities, then boil it in a little water strain the jaggery syrup, and use it to make the batter. Adjust the consistency of the batter by adding a little water. The batter should be thick and pouring consistency. Once the batter has fermented, mix it well and add the baking soda. Mix it once again.
In the meantime, heat the paniyaram pan and grease each mould with a little oil/ghee. I use a combination of both ghee and oil. Pour the batter into each hole of the paniyaram pan and cook it on low to medium flame until it cooks on one side. Flip it to the other side and cook on that side as well. I cover the pan when cooking to make sure that the inside of the paniyaram cooks well.
Remove the paniyaram and serve warm. The paniyaram could be heated in the microwave for a few seconds when serving at a later time.
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