How to make Seenakku, Wandu Appa Recipe
Seenakku is a traditional sweet made from Rice Flour and Jaggery. Seenaku is more than 60 years old in Sri Lankan history and it originated from Malaysia. This sweet is very filling and makes a perfect afternoon teatime snack.
In Malaysia, it is a popular Rice Cake called Kuih Cina. The word Kuih means a bite sized snack and Cina means China (where it is also popular for Chinese New Year). When you reverse these 2 words, you get Cina Kuih and that is how we get the Sinhala name for this Seenakku.
My father said that in the olden days, they would put 100 to 200 Seenaku at a time freshly made in the bakeries. Even if that sounds like a lot, he said that all of it would sell out very fast.
Seenakku is the same thing as Wandu Appa except the only difference is that Seenakku is steamed in small cups instead of a Kanda leaves. If you cannot find these special Seenakku cups, you can use regular small bowls or cups that are oven/stove top safe. You can even instead use small Coconut Shells as the mold when steaming these Seenaku.
You can control the color of these Seenaku by increasing the amount of Jaggery.
Although we used grated Jaggery in this recipe, if you want, you can add Kithul Treacle or a caramelized Sugar syrup instead. However, you must add it when making the dough (before you set the dough aside for it to ferment). If you do this, just add some Salt to the batter and mix thoroughly before pouring the batter into cups.
Seenakku is similar to Pusnambu but it is not the same. The batter for the Pusnambu is mixed with Pol Pani which contains grated Coconut while Seenakku has a syrup made out of Jaggery. Be sure to check out my traditional breakfast Pusnambu recipe to see all the differences.
Ingredients
- 300g of Rice Flour
- 1/3 tsp of Baking Soda
- Coconut Water from 1 Coconut
- Grated Jaggery
- Salt
Instructions
- Sieve 300g of Rice Flour into a bowl.
- Add 1/3 tsp of Baking Soda.
- While adding the Coconut Water from 1 Coconut, a little at a time, mix and form the dough until you get a dough that easily separates from the bowl.
- Now cover the bowl and set it aside for 7 to 8 hours to let the dough ferment.
- Mix the dough thoroughly using a spoon.
- Add half a cup of thick Coconut Milk into a bowl.
- Add some grated Jaggery.
- Mix the Coconut Milk and Jaggery together thoroughly until the Jaggery is melted.
- Add Salt to taste.
- While adding this mixture into the dough, a little at a time, mix thoroughly using your hands. Important: Only add just enough of the mixture to form the batter, you don't want to add too much and cause the batter to become too watery.
- Cover and set it aside for half an hour.
- After half an hour, heat a large pot of Water.
- Add a cooking stand inside.
- Rub some Butter or Coconut Oil on the inside of the Seenaku cups.
- Pour the Batter into 1/3 of the cup (do not overfill).
- Add the Seenaku cups on top of the stand inside the pot.
- Cover the large pot and steam for about 10 minutes (you can even steam them inside the Rice Cooker instead).
- After steaming, let it cool down a bit and then unmold the Seenaku.
- Add some grated Coconut on top of each Seenaku (where the top part of the Seenaku splits).
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