Baked Sojji Appam

Baked Sojji Appam


I am not sure if they are a very popular sweet in shops but they certainly are in my house. My grandma used to make it during our holidays as I used to like them. They are sometimes made as a 'bakshanam' during shradham (devasam). the downside to this yummy sweet is that it is deep fried. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may know that I try to avoid deep frying and seek alternate low fat methods. Exploring a lot of biscuit recipes made me think it should not be very hard making these yummy treats in the oven with little modification to the traditional recipe. This is my grandmother's recipe slightly tweaked for baking. If you wish to deep fry you could very well follow the recipe, skip the baking powder and deep fry instead of bake. If you have a sweet tooth you may want to add a touch more jaggery. I was quite pleased with the results and here is how I made them...

1 cup roasted rava/semolina
1 1/2 cups maida (all purpose flour)
1 ¼ cup powdered jaggery
3 tablespoon crushed nuts
Few pinches of cardamom powder
¼ cup oil
1 tablespoon ghee
1 teaspoon baking powder

To make filling:

Heat jaggery in ½ cup water, filter but ensure it is hot before adding rava, cardamom and the nuts and mixing well. Turn the flame off when mixing the rava as it is not expected to get cooked at this stage and the mixture should not be lose

For the outer cover:

Take the flour with baking powder in a mixing bowl and keep adding some oil and mix so flour starts to resemble breadcrumbs. Add a teaspoon of ghee and add some cold water to make a soft dough. Apply a bit of oil on it and leave aside for about 10 minutes

Grease the fingertips with some ghee and flatten a lemon sized ball of dough. I did it directly on the baking tray lined with baking paper

Keep a smaller sized ball of stuffing in the centre, wrap the dough to cover the filling and flatten again.

Bake at 150degC for 15 minutes and turn sides and bake for a couple of more minutes

Enjoy!!
 
Although this recipe has some oil in it, I have classiffied it as low fat as it is lower in fat than its deep fried version.