Baked Almond Poornam cups- plant-based, oil free.
Poornam, is a South Indian sweet, more so of the telugu speaking Indian states and is made for festivals, especially Pongal, the harvest festival. Cooked split pea lentils, are mixed with jaggery to make a delicious ball that is dipped in mixture of urad dal (black gram)/ rice batter, then deep fried and enjoyed warm with a touch of ghee.
Just like most Indian festive traditional foods, this is another deep fried delicacy, rich in saturated fats. I yearned to find a healthier and convenient alternative process to continue the tradition of festive poornam.
Chana dal is usually soaked well ahead and pressure cooked in the basic recipe. I am going with almond/ oats mix that doesn’t need prior preparation or any pressure cooking.
I used a mixture of chickpea (*not besan) and brown rice flours to make the dipping batter, so no soaking /grinding involved. And for the final step, I actually decided to bake them, because deep frying is/ should be so outdated. I attempted air frying but baking retained a touch of softness on the outside. (I tested out various ingredients, in different proportions 4 times, before ending up with this recipe, which worked out the best.)
I chose to use a cupcake pan, to preserve the integrity of each of these sweet delicacies and ended up with very convenient to eat, cute, the most traditional counterparts of cupcakes. My kids called them- Poornam cups as they were fun to carry around and eat.
The taste, flavors, were on par with the usual deep fried poornam. The only things missing were the oily gloss and lots of unhealthy fat.
Let your Makara Sankranti be prosperous and healthful.
Baked Almond Poornam cups- plant based, oil free
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
Stuffing
- 1 1/4 cup Blanched Almond flour
- 1/2 cup Quick cook oats
- 1/4 cup jaggery or can use a combination of dates/ jaggery, or coconut sugar or date sugar I used jaggery
- 1 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp cardamom powder
- 1 1/2 cup water
Outer shell
- 1/2 cup chick pea flour ( which is slightly different from besan) seen notes
- 1/2 cup brown rice flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
- pinch of salt
Instructions
Making the stuffing
- In a heavy bottom pan, add the oats and toast for 3 min on medium heat. Then add the jaggery powder. You will see the jaggery start melting. At this point, add the water and mix well. About 3 min later add the cardamom powder, salt. The mixture should start to come together, although a bit gooey.
- Then add the almond flour. Mix well into a dough. Put it in the fridge for 30 min. Then make even sized balls with your hand. Roll between hands till the contour is smooth. Save them in a bowl.At this stage preheat the oven to 375 F.
Making the outer coat
- Tae a deep bowl. Add the chickpea flour and rice flour. Add the baking powder, salt, apple cider vinegar, then water. Mix with a spoon to have a batter that has consistency of slightly thicker dosa batter, or usual pancake batter.
Baking the Cup Poornams
- Take a mini cup cake tray and using very little oil by hand, coat the cupcake wells. Dip the already made sweet oat/ almond balls in the batter made , and place them gently in the cupcake molds. If you see any spot where the batter is missing, use a spoon to cover the spot with extra batter. Press a sliced almond on the top of each ball once in the cupcake mold.Bake at 375 F for 20 min. Then take the tray out and use a sharp knife or skewer to flip the poornams , so that the flat bottom is up. This is to facilitate even cooking all over. Then bake for additional 10 minutes. Once out of the oven, let them cool for 10 min, before removing from the tray and enjoy them warm.The slight cracks that add character to these cute cups, you will notice are normal, because we are baking and not deep frying, which is extremely unhealthy.
