Mawa Modak is a quickest and instant variation of Modak and gets done in less than 30 minutes. These tasty modak variant is made with minimal ingredients like mawa or khoya (evaporated milk solids), sugar and cardamom powder.
Grease the modak moulds with a bit of ghee or oil. Place aside.
Crumble finely or grate mawa or khoya.
Heat a pan. Keep the flame to a low and add 1.5 cups of the grated mawa.
Keep stirring on low heat for a minute. The mawa will begin to melt.
When the mawa begin to melt, add the sugar to the mawa and stir for a minute.
Soon the mawa mixture will start releasing fat.
Once the mixture starts bubbling, then sprinkle cardamom powder.
The mixture will start thickening. Continuously keep stirring so that the mixture cooks evenly and does not get burnt.
Keep stirring on low heat until the mixture starts leaving the edges of the pan.
Do not overcook the mixture as then the modak will turn out chewy and dense.
Immediately transfer the mixture in another plate or tray.
Allow the mixture to become warm at room temperature.
Assemble and Shape Mawa Modak
Then knead to a soft dough while the mixture is still warm.
Make small balls from the dough while still warm.
Place a small mawa ball in the modak mould. Simply press the mawa ball so that it takes the shape of the mould.
Gently unmould and repeat the same with the rest of mixture.
Place the modak over a greased plate. Lightly spread some ghee or a neutral oil on the plate. You can also use banana leaf or turmeric leaf instead of a plate.
Offer mawa modak to Bhagwan Ganesha. These modak can also be refrigerated and then served later.
Notes
Make sure to use fresh mawa that tastes sweet. It should not have a bitter or sour taste which implies that it has gone rancid.
You could also use jaggery powder in place of sugar.
Add finely chopped nuts or dry fruits if you like.
For a saffron flavored mawa modak, soak a few saffron strands in a bit of warm milk for 5 minutes. Add this soaked saffron milk mixture to the mawa when you add sugar.
This recipe is easily scaleable to make for more quantities of mawa modak. But keep in mind that for larger quantities, plenty of hand stirrings will be needed when cooking the mawa mixture.