Apple Pola/ Apple Kums (A Malabar Apple Cake / Pudding)

The recipe of Apple pola was given to me by one of my best friends Sufaija. She is just like me, someone who loves desserts. As with any Malabar dessert/sweet recipe like chatti pathiri, Mutta Marichathu, Plantain cake (Kaayi Pola), Pazham Nirachathu, Unnakkaaya, muttamaala, panneer petty etc this one is also an egg based one and have lot to do with eggs. I had just made this apple pudding once for the sake of trying as the recipe was very simple. I thought it was nice but not something I would crave for often like I do for chocolates. But I am forced to prepare this again and again as my son and hubby loves it!!

I made this couple of months back and then completely forgot about the recipe. I wouldn?t even have put up this recipe here if my son had never asked me for it. But last week, after the school my son just started asking me for apple squares and I thought he was asking me for some squares he had at school. At first I gave him apples cut in square shape. He dint take it and kept on asking me for apple squares. He then told me it is a cake and he had it from home!!!And it was only this apple cake that I made recently and nothing else and maybe I gave him saying it was apple square!The cake is cut in squares and not wedges. He loves this cake and I this is one way to get him eat eggs as he hates eggs in any other form.

The cake is more like a pudding, soft, moist, fluffy, but not spongy like our normal cakes. It can be eaten warm or at room temperature. This cake does not keep well and should be eaten within a day or two and is normally served along with evening tea. It is very important to set the heat to minimum as the cake gets burnt quickly. You can see that in few of my pictures that the cake is over browned as my son was impatient and hungry so had to turn up the heat a bit and the cake browned much further than it should!The recipe is very simple and very flexible. You can reduce or increase the amount of sugar, flour, eggs and milk powder in the recipe and yet get the same result. I have been making this quite a few times now and always used different measurements and yet you get a good cake.

3 - 4 small eating apples or 2 large ones Around 350g - 450g

4-5 large eggs

¼ - 1/3 cup caster sugar

¼ cup Milk powder

¼ cup Plain flour

½ teaspoon vanilla essence or ¼ teaspoon cardamom powder

1.Peel and core apples and cut into rough chunks. Throw them into the blender along with sugar, milk powder and eggs. Blend them for a minute until smooth and pale yellow in colour.

2. Add vanilla essence and plain flour and blend until mixed well.

3. Place a Take a non-stick deep sauce pan (I used a deep 7 inch pan,but the size doesn?t really matter), grease it well using ghee. I also placed a greased baking paper as my cake always tends to stick to the pan. Set the heat to the lowest possible.

4. Pour the batter in the pan, cover it tightly with a lid and cook for about 20-25 minutes or until the top part looks set. If the bottom and the side part is browning quickly, you can place a simmer plate underneath to avoid further browning. Make sure the flame is set to lowest as it browns too quickly if kept on higher heat.

5. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes in the pan, before flipping it over to another plate. If using baking paper, you can just pull out the baking paper, holding all its sides. This can be served hot or warm. It should be eaten on the day it?s made and could be refrigerated for the next day use.

1 Apple

2 eggs

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp plain flour

2 Tbsp Milk powder

1. Blend all in a blender and cook it in a well greased non-stick frying pan or sauce pan. With this amount, it makes a very small cake, so you will need a very small pan of 4-6 inches wide.