Banana Paddu | Balehannu Guliyappa

How do you use overly ripen bananas ?

This recipe gives you one of the ways to use them, and it makes a perfect evening snack in combination with chai or coffee.

Instant sweet banana appam/paniyaram/paddu is prepared with whole wheat flour, jaggery and coconut. Instead of banana, you can use jack fruit or other seasonal fruits too.

This appam tastes the best when banana is well ripen. I personally like the dish less sweet, so I have used 1/4 cup of jaggery. If the bananas are not too sweet or if extra sweetness is preferred increase the amount of jaggery being added.

Typical way of preparing this dish is by deep frying the small dumplings of batter in hot oil, I have used paddu pan instead, and cooked it using a little ghee. This is a good option for toddler snack as it not deep fried. I also add 2-3 tbsp of almond flour to make it more nutritious.

Ingredients:

• 3 large ripe banana or 4 or 5 medium size ripe bananas
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsp almond flour (optional)
• 1/4 cup coconut (add a little bit extra coconut to make the appam less dense)
• 1/4 -1/2 cup jaggery
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 spoon roasted black sesame seeds (optional)
• pinch of cardamom (optional)
• pinch of salt(1/4 tsp or less)
• ghee / coconut oil

Preparation :

1. Peal and cut the bananas. Well ripe bananas enhance the flavour
2. mash them using fork until no lumps are formed
3. Add 1/4 – 1/2 cup jaggery(I used the powder version of jaggery) and mix well, until jaggery is dissolved . Alternatively, 1/2 cup jaggery can be boiled in 1/4 cup water, strain the syrup and can be mixed with the banana and flour.
4. Now add wheat flour, almond flour, coconut, sesame seeds, salt and mix well. If the batter is too thick add little water to get thick cake batter like consistency. {refer images below}
5. grease the pan- all the moulds, and pour batter into each mould, fill 3/4 of the mould.
6. Cover the pan, and cook in low-medium heat.
7. when the base turns golden to brown, flip and cook the other side.
8. Serve hot with chai or coffee