These are the days of Ganpati festival and how can’t I make His favorite Modak..this time I made these modak with chocolate though. Very shiny, moderately sweet and mildly flavored with saffron and cardamom, these beauties taste divine.
Chocolate Modak with Elaichi and Saffron
Servings: 15
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
It is very simple to make the chocolates of the shape and flavor which you want. Cut chocolate compound coarsely, temper it uniformly, add the flavorings of your choice, place the mixture in the silicone molds of the desired shape, keep in fridge for 20 minutes and then you have your delicious chocolates!
Some people use chocolate couverture instead of chocolate compound. I have used chocolate compound here.
Tempering of chocolate is very important to get the gloss and shine on the final product. There are two ways to temper the chocolate, either use double boiler method (keeping the bowl of uniformly cut chocolate on top of a bigger vessel having just simmering water, without allowing the hot water to touch the bottom of chocolate bowl) or heating the chocolate in microwave safe bowl in short duration of 30 / 10 seconds. One should take a precaution to strictly avoid any water drops coming in contact with the chocolate during this whole process.
Ingredients
White chocolate compound – 200 gms (at room temperature)
Saffron – 10-12 strands
Cardamom – 1 tsp (powdered)
Yellow food gel colour – 3-4 drops (or as required)
Red food gel colour – 1 drop
Directions
On a chopping board, cut the white chocolate compound in smaller chunks with same sizes so that all the pieces melt uniformly while tempering.
Add the cut chocolate to microwave safe bowl
Keep the bowl in microwave for 30 seconds
Combine semi molten chocolate well using a silicone spatula
Keep the bowl once again in microwave for 10 seconds
Take out the bowl, mix the chocolate well
Repeat the above process 2 more times or until chocolate is well melted and looks shiny and glossy (if you feel that the chocolate is heated too long and is no looking shiny, allow it to cool completely and repeat the procedure of heating in pulses)
Add yellow food color (I had to use 4 drops) and red food color (just 1 drop)
Add saffron strands and cardamom powder. Mix well
Spoon the chocolate mixture in silicone mold for modak to fill all the cavities
Tap the mold on the platform to remove any air bubbles inside the cavities
Keep in the fridge for 20 minutes to allow the chocolates to harden
Carefully unmold the chocolates from silicone mold and savour the little beauties!