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The Modak is a hugely celebrated Indian sweet. It’s all over the country during the Ganesh Chaturti season, alluring you in a variety of overwhelming forms. Either prepared with dollops of love at home or purchased from confectioneries to exchange with buddies, it’s a sweet lover’s prize!

The most common methods of making modak involve either steam-cooking or deep-frying the coconut-jaggery stuffed modaks made from rice/whole wheat flour/Maida (refined flour). While you do find an enormous variety of Modaks at sweet marts during festivals like Ganesh Chaturti & Diwali, they are Pedas refashioned into the unique ‘dome’ shape of a Modak.

No-Sugar Chocolate modak recipe

While I love these Peda-modaks too, I still find the sweet shop ones heavily pungent with the smell of Ghee/Mawa (Khova), instead of smelling pleasantly aromatic the way we can make them in our own kitchen!

And since CHOCOLATE is my Bae, 🙂 I always try to flavor my desserts/snackers/beverages with chocolate as long as it’s logically & nutritionally viable.

Here’s a quick video version of making the Chocolate Modak recipe.

BECAUSE, what’s the point of eating healthy if you can’t play around with flavors & fragrances that you’re addicted to, or can’t recreate a favorite taste for that matter?

Delicious homemade chocolate modaks without sugar or condensed milk

So, I made some really delicious CHOCOLATE MODAKS WITHOUT USING REFINED SUGAR.

And here’s the simple recipe for you to make healthy, sugar-free chocolate modak. 🙂

Healthy sugar-free chocolate modak recipe
5 from 1 vote
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Healthy & Sugar-free Homemade Chocolate Modak Recipe

A dessert so simple made with healthy ingredients. Make these at home & bask in their rich & authentic taste without feeling guilty over being high on sugar rush.

Course Dessert
Cuisine Indian
Keyword Chocolate Modak, Chocolate Modak recipes, Chocolate sweets, Diwali recipes, Diwali sweets, Ganesh Chaturti recipes, Healthy Chocolate sweets, Healthy dessert recipes, Healthy Modak recipes, Indian dessert recipes, Indian sweet recipes, Modak
Cook Time 20 minutes
Cooling & Setting Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 10 Modaks
Author Ashvini Naik

Ingredients

  • 400 grams Khova / Mawa (Evaporated Milk solids) cut into small pieces, approx measuring an inch each.
  • 4 tbsp Unsweetened Cacao/Cocoa Powder
  • 10 tsp Jaggery Powder
  • ½ tsp Cardamom powder / crushed cardamom seeds
  • 3 tbsp Ghee If you have it homemade, it's the best! This is for greasing your hands & Modak mould while setting the modak into the shape.
  • 1 tsp Almonds chopped coarsely
  • 1.5 tsp Pistachios chopped coarsely

Instructions

  1. In the saucepan, start heating the cut pieces of Khova on a medium flame.

  2. Keep sauteing till it begins to disintegrate & apparently melting. At this point, reduce the flame a little bit.

  3. Add the jaggery powder & keep mixing till the jaggery appears to start blending with the Khova. Be careful with adjusting the flame to low/medium at this point.

    Chocolate Modak melting the khova with jaggery powder

  4. Only after the consistency starts to thin a bit with the jaggery melting away, on a simmered flame, add the cacao/cocoa powder.

    Adding cacao powder to the modak mixture

  5. Add the cardamom powder, chopped almonds & pistachios.

  6. Mix well until the entire thing starts to thicken in consistency & begins to form a gooey mass.

    Stir until the mixture forms a gooey mass for the chocolate modak

  7. Put the flame off & keep this aside to cool on its own or under the fan, may be.

  8. When the mass is cool enough for you to hold in your bare hands, get started with the moulding & unmoulding.

  9. Grease the modak mould & your hands with ghee so as to prevent the sticking of the modak mass all over.

    Grease the inside of the modak mould with ghee

  10. Make balls relative to the size of the mould & pack it inside the mould completely. Close & press the mould very well. Unmould the modak carefully.

  11. Repeat this till you get all the modaks moulded & unmoulded.

  12. If you find the moulding-unmoulding process cumbersome, no worries. You could very well structure them into the modak shape anyway (Just like we model clay!)

  13. Place all of these modaks on a plate & refrigerate for about 20-25 minutes.

  14. Voila! Your scrummy & luscious Chocolate modaks are waiting for you to devour them! 😉

Recipe Notes

  1. If you’re cooking in a metallic saucepan, you can add 1/2 tbsp of Ghee when you start melting the Khova with jaggery powder, to avoid its sticking to the surface.
  2. You can use Coconut Sugar/ Coconut jaggery instead of jaggery powder.
  3. Never add the cacao/cocoa powder in the beginning itself. This tends to burning of the chocolate & renders an usually bitter taste to the mixture. You may end up ruining the entire process.

About choosing the Cacao/Cocoa powder

A lot of us are used to the term ‘cocoa‘ powder when it comes to chocolate-related recipes. While ‘Cacao’ & ‘Cocoa’ may seem to be just a commercial preference of a certain lingo, there’s a bit of difference in both of them in terms of how much fat, calories & sugar they contain.

Many of us are aware that chocolate is prepared from the seeds (beans) of the fruit of the Theobroma cacao tree, which has a pod-like structure.

And generally, experts state that when Cacao products are further processed & fat-pressed, the powder is called Cocoa powder.

Cacao products are great sources of minerals, like Selenium, Magnesium & a lot of them. The relatively less processed AKA raw cacao products contain very little or no added sugar & are high on antioxidants than the processed versions, like the general cocoa powder.

I personally started to prefer Cacao powder over Cocoa powder after being influenced & guided by Simrun Chopra. And while chocolate is my feel-good factor, especially when I crave a lot of it during my mid-cycles, I noticed that I felt more satisfied with anything made from it (like even the hot chocolate that Simrun recommends) without feeling tempted to have more of it or feeling uneasy with the sweetness quotient that goes on to make you feel guilty of having it.

I generally buy the HappyHealthyMe Organics Unsweetened Cacao powder or Tree Foods Unsweetened Cacao powder (which one I buy each time largely depends on their availability online) to use in most of my chocolate recipes. However, you can use any brand as long as the powder is unsweetened. Because, what’s the point in intending to moderate your sugar intake if you ignore the sugar content in your ingredients, right?

Making sugarless chocolate modaks without condensed milk or milk powder

About choosing the sweetener for the Modak

This modak recipe requires timely stirring & mixing actions. Hence, if you’re not using the regular processed sugar here, you must use a fine version of the unrefined sweetener of your choice.

Of course, you can grate the regular jaggery to get it into fine form. But I personally prefer to go for jaggery powder instead of grating jaggery. The latter thing may result in uneven melting & mixing of the mixture.

You can also use coconut sugar, if that’s what your choice is.

The Khova & the mould

I use Khova from Milky Mist & you could find a variety of modak moulds here.

Grease the inside of the modak mould with ghee

Although these modaks are made with all healthy ingredients, please do not try to have more than 1 modak at a time though you may be tempted. Enjoy in moderation as having too many in one go can still cause a calorie rush. Relish every bite & get soaked in the piquant taste of these Modaks.

What kept me steady even after QUITTING SUGAR

A lot of my lifestyle over the past 2 years has been tremendously influenced by Simrun Chopra. Whether it’s about:

  • eating sustainably healthy,
  • weight maintenance,
  • being as much regular with workouts (& not feeling guilty if they’re missed for genuine reasons),
  • relishing favorites on the menu even while dining out &
  • curating ideas for making my own desserts as I have a barmy sweet tooth

And while I’ve been happily doing all of them, I had never thought I’d still be going strong & unaffected by sweet urges after having PERMANENTLY QUIT REFINED SUGAR since this April.

Believe me, life got even better & literally delicious after I joined Anastasia Sharova’s Easy & Healthy Sugar-free desserts course later this year. For someone who madly loved sweets of all kinds (not the deep fried ones though!), the course came as a revolution.

With not just some really easy recipes to make my own homemade sweets, the entire course is designed by certified & globally renowned nutritionists (who’ve delved into the Indian cuisine with a greater zeal). The course actually puts your mind to work out quick dessert concoctions in your kitchen with things you already have in your pantry.

Anastasia’s desserts course added that extra mileage to my eating habits with regards to sweets despite having quit processed sugar. You see, it’s already been 8 months that sugar & I broke up. 🙂 So I gladly enrolled into the course as an affiliate as well, to share about this life-changing course with you.

So while I talk more about it in my next newsletter, you can buy the course at a very reasonable price by clicking on the course name I just mentioned a little above.

Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links to products I used for this recipe & the course(s) that channeled my choices of ingredients that went along. That means if you make any purchase by clicking on them, I earn a tiny commission at no extra cost to you. If you do, I’m all thanks!

I only recommend products/courses that I personally used or am impressed with. Read my full disclosure here.

Reference(s):

Fermentation of Cocoa Beans

Cocoa – Dry powder, Unsweetened

Chocolate – Essential mineral nutrients

Did you like this Modak recipe? How about trying it out today? Or bookmarking it for making it sometime soon? Please drop in your comment(s). 🙂

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