Regional Sacred Stories · Kerala

The Unniyappam Offering

← Back to Regional Sacred Stories The Kottarakkara temple courtyard, home to the Unniyappam sweet offering tradition. Photo: Vinayaraj / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

At the Kottarakkara temple, no offering is more closely identified with Shree Ganesh than Unniyappam — a small, sweet, deep-fried delicacy that has become the temple's signature prasadam.

An Offering Rooted in Origin

Tradition holds that Perumthachan himself, upon completing the carved idol, offered a larger version of this sweet, known as Koottappam, to the infant form of Shree Ganesh he had just brought into being — a gesture of devotion that set the pattern still followed by the temple today.

Kerala's Distinct Style

Unniyappam, made from rice flour, jaggery, and banana, holds its own distinctive place among the many sweets offered to Shree Ganesh across India, reflecting Kerala's particular culinary tradition even as it carries the same universal devotion behind Modak elsewhere.

What Devotees Seek

Devotees visiting Kottarakkara seek out this specific prasadam as part of their worship, understanding it not merely as a sweet treat but as a continuation of the very first offering made at the temple's founding.