Ingredients
Makes 12 modaks. Scale using the Modak Calculator. Tap any ingredient to tick it off.
Method
Make the filling first
Standard coconut-jaggery filling. Cool completely. This step is the same as ukadiche modak.
Make three separate doughs
Make three rice flour doughs separately — one with saffron water (saffron dissolved in the boiling water), one plain (white), one with spinach juice replacing part of the water. Keep each covered with a damp cloth.
Portion each dough
Take one small ball from each colour — approximately 9–10g each (total about 28–30g per modak). You will use all three colours in each single modak.
Shape the tri-colour modak
Press each coloured ball into a small disc. Stack saffron → white → green, press together gently. Shape the combined disc on a greased palm into a single modak — the three colours will show as horizontal stripes around the body. Bring edges up into pleats, seal at the peak.
Steam 10–12 minutes
On banana leaf at medium-high heat. The three-coloured modaks are extraordinary in the steamer and on the plate. The saffron layer will be vivid orange, the middle white, the green vivid.
Tips & Variations
The Indian flag sequence from top: saffron (kesari), white, India green. In modak form, wrap the colours in the same sequence from the base upward: green at base, white middle, saffron at peak.
The tri-colour modak requires confident shaping — any hesitation and the layers blur into each other. Make a few single-colour modaks first to warm up your hands before attempting the three-colour version.
Tri-colour modak made for 15 August (Independence Day) and 26 January (Republic Day) as well as Ganesh Chaturthi. The one modak for three of India's greatest occasions.
About This Recipe
Tri-colour modak is the most overtly patriotic sweet in the Indian festival tradition — the colours of the national flag expressed in the most sacred sweet form. It is also the most technically demanding of the standard steamed varieties, requiring the coordination of three separate doughs and confident shaping to produce clean colour striping.
Made well, a plate of tri-colour modaks is genuinely moving — the saffron, white, and green of the flag in the peaked form of the nation's most beloved prasad. The combination of national identity and devotional tradition in one sweet is uniquely, powerfully Indian.