Oriental sweets churchkhela recipe. Churchkhela - Georgian sweet made from juice and nuts

“Churchkhela, what is it?” - an involuntary question arises in my head. Everyone who has ever been to the Caucasus, the Krasnodar Territory or the Black Sea must have heard this mysterious word. Local merchants now and then offer to try an unknown dish. What is it, and is it possible to cook churchkhela at home?

Churchkhela is an oriental sweet, popular among the Caucasian peoples, also common in Armenia, Greece, and Turkey. In each country, this dish is assigned its own name, but its essence does not change from this.

Churchkhela is a nut thread covered with condensed grape juice, sweet in taste, and has a high nutritional value. Since the individual components are very useful in themselves and contain a large amount of substances necessary for the body, the dessert as a whole is replete with vitamins, minerals, natural sugars, unsaturated fatty acids and vegetable protein.

The origin of sweetness is controversial. Churchkhela is considered a Georgian national delicacy. However, there is evidence that at first a very similar dish appeared in Armenia. The prototype was called "shpot" and was a thick grape jelly mixed with nuts. The filling was not strung on a thread, but simply added to the caramel. The dessert was not allowed to dry out, it was eaten immediately after preparation.

But in 2011, Georgia registered its rights to churchkhela. And now the dish is considered truly Georgian. Despite this, it is prepared in many other countries.

Some are wondering: “which is correct: chuchkhela or churchkhela”? The answer is obvious. The Georgian word is pronounced "churchkhela" and there are no other variants.

Main Ingredients

Basically, churchkhela is made from walnuts and grape juice.

However, the use of other components is not prohibited. The filling can be hazelnuts, almonds, cashews or pecans, candied fruits, raisins, prunes, dried apricots, dried cherries, etc. Sweetness is also made on the basis of a mixture of different types of nuts and a mix of nuts and dried fruits.

Grape juice is thickened with corn flour, but this rule is not immutable. You can use regular wheat flour instead. This does not affect the taste and usefulness of the dessert.

If desired, even grape juice can be replaced with pomegranate, apple, peach, plum, cherry and any other. There are no hard requirements here. Each component brings something different, changing the taste and appearance of the dessert.

Grape juice produces a red or chocolate-colored delicacy. Apple churchkhela becomes amber. Pomegranate juice is very valuable in itself. It is rarely sent to the manufacture of churchkhela, as it greatly increases the cost of the product. At home, you can experiment with different flavors and make oriental sweets from the fruits that are at hand.

Contraindications to the use of churchkhela

In any article that deals with this delicacy, the section “churchkhela benefits and harms” takes up very little space. Oriental sweet made in the traditional way contains only natural ingredients. Therefore, for a healthy person, it is not dangerous, but very useful. However, people with some problems should beware of its excessive use.

So, due to the high sugar content, churchkhela becomes very high in calories. There are 400-500 energy units per 100 grams of product. Those who want to lose weight should not overdo it in eating. Overweight people should completely abandon the use of churchkhela.

Due to the same sugars, it is not suitable for diabetics suffering from a serious stage of the disease. There are a lot of both complex and simple carbohydrates in churchkhela, which quickly enter the bloodstream.

This dessert is rich in minerals, and their excess burdens the kidneys. Therefore, churchkhela should be limited to people with related problems, using it in moderation.

How to cook churchkhela at home

Learn recipes. Watch the video on how churchkhela is made, and then start making it yourself. This process is not laborious, but long. Be patient, let the dessert ripen, and only then take samples.

Find a place in the kitchen where you hang walnut threads. For some time, juice will flow from the churchkhela. Think in advance what should be laid under it so that puddles of syrup can be easily removed.

Prepare a dry container in which to put the blanks. Churchkhela will need to be removed to a dark place where it will ripen in order to acquire a harmonious characteristic taste.

Classic churchkhela recipe

The classic recipe involves walnuts. The raw and freshest fruits are used. We determine their condition by eye: we need light, uniform, straw-colored, without darkening and bitterness.

You can supplement them with cashews, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds. Raisins, dried apricots and prunes also do not interfere.

The walnut should be cut into halves. The larger the particles of the filling, the more elegant the churchkhela will look.

Prepare a dense cotton thread and a thick needle. We will also need a thimble, without which it will be quite difficult to pierce the nuts.

We string the stuffing. We make a sausage 15-20 cm long. We leave the end of the rope free. Subsequently, we will hang the churchkhela so that it dries on some basis. And we will attach to the base with the free end of the thread.

We cook pelamushi. This is a thick grape syrup that envelops strung nuts.

For 350 grams of filling, 2 liters of red or white grape juice are consumed. It is better to take a fresh one, in extreme cases, buy it in a store. You can work hard and make it yourself. Juice is made by pressing berries in a juicer. Or grind the grapes with a blender and squeeze the resulting mass through gauze or a sieve.

Pour one half into a bowl and set the other half aside. Boil the part that is in the pan and continue to cook for 15 minutes.

In the second half of the juice, dissolve a glass of flour. It must be gradually poured and stirred so that no lumps form. Add this mixture to the boiling juice. We will cook until the mass decreases in volume by a quarter. In general, it should thicken and become like a viscous caramel in consistency.

In turn, lower the walnut sausages into grape jelly. Lightly push them with a wooden spatula so that they are saturated with juice on all sides. Hang the finished bundle to dry for half an hour.

Let's repeat the procedure. We will do it repeatedly until the nuts are covered with a crust of grape juice 1-1.5 cm thick. Then we hang the bundle to dry and leave it for two weeks.

Outside, the juice will harden and turn into a smooth, shiny glaze, inside the mass will remain soft. In this state, churchkhela is ready to eat, but you can be patient and let it ripen.

To do this, it should be wrapped in parchment or a waffle towel, put in a container and sent to a dark, dry place for 2-3 months. Churchkhela, like a good wine, in the process of maturation reveals its best properties: it becomes harder, enriched with aromatic substances. Its surface is covered with a thin sugar coating.

The juice in a mature churchkhela becomes homogeneous, similar in consistency to a dense jelly. Dessert breaks off pleasantly, chews easily, does not knit and does not stick to the teeth.

Ready sweetness, subject to the conditions, is stored for a long time.

How to store churchkhela? It should be a dark, well-ventilated room with normal humidity.

Churchkhela with roasted nuts

Roasted walnuts become brittle and almost impossible to string. Therefore, for such a recipe, it is better to take red-hot hazelnuts.

You can buy nuts ready-made or roast them yourself. Place the hazelnuts in a dry, hot skillet. Fry over medium heat, stirring constantly until golden brown and fragrant.

If the nuts have become too dry, they will not be able to string them. They will split. Therefore, before further cooking, it is advisable to soak them in warm water. Swollen nuts will no longer crumble.

For churchkhela you will need:

200 grams of hazelnuts;
1 liter of grape juice;
130 grams of flour (about 2/3 cup).

The juice is divided in half. Boil one part, and boil for 15 minutes. In the other part, dissolve the flour and add this whole mixture to the boiled juice. Boil for another 10-15 minutes, turn off the heat.

We make beads from nuts, stringing them on a strong thread. Tie a knot at the bottom. From above we form a loop for which we will hang the sweetness.

Three times with a break of 30 seconds we dip the beads in turn into grape jelly. We hang the churchkhela. We give the excess juice to drain, and the workpiece to dry a little. Dip again in syrup and repeat until it reaches the desired thickness.

We hang the churchkhela in a dark place. The sweetness will dry out in one to two weeks. After that, it is ready for use, but for better fixing it can be sent for ripening.

Spicy churchkhela

The basis of spicy churchkhela is the same grape juice. We take any nuts, raw or hardened. Their total weight should be 300-350 grams. You will also need, as in the classic recipe, 2 liters of grape juice. Sweet lovers can add 1-2 tablespoons of sugar to it.

The taste becomes spicy due to the presence of cinnamon and cloves. Take a third of a teaspoon of the first seasoning and 4 pods of the second.

We divide the grape juice into two parts. We put half on fire. Boil on low heat for 15 minutes. In another container, mix cold juice with a glass of wheat or corn flour.

Add flour mixture to boiling broth. Add sugar and seasonings to the common cauldron. We keep it on fire for literally another 10 minutes and proceed to the main action.

We lower the threads with nuts into the prepared mass. Let them dry a little and do it again. We hang the churchkhela to dry. We are waiting for 1-2 weeks when it hardens.

Armenian churchkhela

For Armenian churchkhela, let's take a liter of apple juice. We will thicken it with cornmeal (120 grams). We do everything as usual. Let's put one part on fire. In another, we will dilute the thickener. Combine both parts in a saucepan, add vanilla or cinnamon to taste. Boil the syrup to the consistency of thick jelly.

For the filling, combine your favorite nuts, prunes, dried cherries and grapes. Carefully string on a double thread. Dip all the charm in boiled juice.

Let's hang sweet threads in a secluded corner, after laying parchment paper under them. We will dry in the absence of direct sunlight for about two weeks. Do not forget that the room must be well ventilated.

Plum churchkhela recipe

We will cook churchkhela with natural plum juice. We will select 2.5 kg of ripe fruits. Let's free them from the seeds and peel. Scroll the pulp in a meat grinder or chop with a blender. Squeeze through a sieve and get juice.

Mix it with 120 grams of flour or potato starch. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Let's put it on fire. Let's boil a little. Let the mixture boil and thicken to the desired consistency.

Pre-prepare the filling of nuts, candied fruits and dried fruits. Let's make beautiful dense beads. Roll them several times in plum caramel. Let's hang to dry. We'll check it out in two weeks. If the surface of the churchkhela is no longer sticky, you can remove the oriental sweetness from the crossbar and use it for your own pleasure.

Now you have learned how to make churchkhela at home. It's not difficult at all. The main thing is to be patient, follow all the cooking conditions and not eat the delicacy until it is ready.

An exotic sweet with an unpronounceable name - churchkhela - is easy to cook at home: a minimum of available products and on your table - "sweet greetings from Georgia."

The first thing you need is nuts for the filling. Traditionally, hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts are used. The filling of churchkhela can be either homogeneous - one variety of nuts is used, or mixed - a nut mix, to which you can also add raisins, pumpkin seeds, prunes. Prepare a strong cotton thread, on which you will string nuts, and a thick needle. The thread for churchkhela 25 cm in size should be 10 - 15 cm longer, at the remaining end of the thread you need to make a loop, on which the churchkhela will be hung to dry in the future. Decide in advance on the place for drying the churchkhela until fully cooked (you will have to wait 5-7 days). You can adapt a rolling pin for these purposes, put loops on it and fix it so that the “nut threads” hang freely. Take care of the baking paper (or paper towel) on which the dripping juice will drip.

Now you can start cooking grape jelly - pelamushi or tatars, into which walnut threads will be dipped. Usually, natural white or red grape juice and cornmeal are used to make pelamushi, but the original ingredients can be replaced, for example, wheat flour can be used instead of cornmeal. Getting freshly squeezed grape juice at home is easy: buy grapes and run them through a juicer, or puree the berries in a blender and squeeze. In extreme cases, natural juice can be replaced with packaged juice.

Churchkhela cooked with grape juice has a pleasant chocolate color. Departing from the "canonical" recipe, you can use juices from other fruits and berries. Churchkhela from pomegranate juice is red, from apple juice it is amber, and from apricot juice it is golden.

For pelamushi for 350 g of nuts, you will need 2 liters of grape juice, 200 g of flour. If the grape juice is not very sweet, add sugar or honey.

Cooking. Pour off half of the grape juice and set aside. Bring the rest of the grape juice to a boil and cook for 10-15 minutes. In the set aside half of the juice, add flour and mix thoroughly so that there are no lumps. Gradually pour the flour mixture into the boiling grape juice, cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes, remembering to stir.

Dip the thread with nuts into the grape "kissel", using a wooden spatula, carefully soak the churchkhela. Hang the sausages to dry by laying baking paper under them. As soon as they dry out a little (after about 20 minutes), dip them into the pelamushi again. Repeat the procedure until the churchkhela reaches the desired thickness. Hang the churchkhela to dry.

Advice! If you have cooked churchkhela, but you still have “jelly” (pelamushi), do not rush to throw it away! "Kissel" is a completely independent dish, in which you can add nut crumbs and serve for dessert.

The most famous Georgian sweet - churchkhela - in the classic version is made from fresh grape juice and nuts. There is nothing complicated in its manufacture! Nuts can be taken in one variety or assorted: choose hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds. Also, to make churchkhela, you will need a thick cotton thread and a large “gypsy” needle.

Name:	churchkhela
Date added:	09.01.2016
Cooking time:	3 o'clock
Servings per recipe:	6
Rating:	(1 , cf. 5.00 out of 5)

Ingredients

Churchkhela recipe

Wash the grapes and squeeze the juice out of it (2 liters are required). If the juice is not sweet enough, you can add sugar or honey. Take a saucepan, pour 1 liter of juice into it. Bring it to a boil, reduce heat and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Pour flour into the remaining 1 liter of juice, stirring vigorously so that no lumps form.

Instead of corn flour, you can take wheat flour, but only corn flour is used in the classic recipe. Then pour the flour mixture into the boiling juice in a thin stream, stirring constantly. After the two types of juice are mixed, you need to let the mixture boil for 15-20 minutes to form grape jelly - pelamushi. The mixture should be constantly stirred.

For each churchkhela, measure 35-40 cm of threads on the basis that 25 cm of them will be in the sweetness itself, and the remaining 10-15 cm will go to the loop by which the churchkhela should be hung. Find a place where the blanks will hang. You need to string nuts on a thick and strong thread, then dip each thread well in jelly so that the nuts are covered with it from all sides.
By choosing unusual ingredients for the mixture, you will get a special churchkhela! Hang the finished threads to dry for 20 minutes, laying food foil or baking paper under them, where the jelly will drip. Be careful not to hang the sweets too close, otherwise they will stick together! After 20 minutes, you need to repeat the dipping of each thread and hang it to dry again. Repeat until the churchkhela is the desired thickness.

Then hang the threads in a place protected from direct sunlight and leave there until the final solidification (for 5-7 days). Sometimes raisins, dried fruits and seeds are added to churchkhela along with nuts. Churchkhela is also made from apple, apricot, pear and peach juices.

The article will discuss how to cook a delicious grape dish, and a real churchkhela recipe that can be easily repeated at home will be described. This wonderful dish is popular in many countries, it is cooked in Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and other wonderful places on our planet. Every tourist who has tried such a delicacy on vacation will remember these taste sensations for a long time.

What is Churchkhela, and what beneficial properties does it have?

This delicacy belongs to numerous oriental sweets and is made exclusively from ingredients of natural origin. Churchkhela is adored by both adults and children, but the real nutritional value of this sweet scares away many of the fair sex who care about their slender figure. The calorie content of the dish may vary, but the average value is approximately 405 kcal / 100 g. The content of BJU (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) in 100 grams of the product is approximately the following: 5-14-62.

Due to its natural composition, Churchkhela is very useful. In the classic version, it is made from grape juice and nuts. There are many different cooking options. Juice is often used apricot, melon, apple, cherry or pomegranate. The final color of the product will depend on his choice. A standard recipe using grape juice makes Churchkhela purple. The nut component can also be exchanged for dried fruits.

Beneficial features:

High ecological value of the product (no dyes, preservatives and artificial sweeteners);
The ability to quickly restore strength (the high nutritional value of the delicacy is great for a snack at times when there is no possibility of eating the usual food);
Significant improvement in the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, heart and other systems of the human body;
The ability to increase performance due to the content of organic sugar;
The high content of vitamins and microelements in this natural product has a positive effect on the body, the health of teeth, nails and hair.

Are there any contraindications to the use of Churchkhela? Diabetics, obese people, patients suffering from tuberculosis or kidney disease cannot consume this delicacy, since grape juice is categorically contraindicated for these categories of people. The dish can also cause an allergic reaction in some categories of people, so it is recommended to try the sweetness in small portions for the first time. This should be done especially carefully by expectant mothers and women with newborn children because of the risk of side effects. Next, we will talk about how to cook Churchkhela at home.

Recipe

For the recipe for cooking Churchkhela at home, you will need:

Natural grape juice (you can take any other to your taste) - 1 liter;
A mixture of peeled walnuts and hazelnuts - 0.5 kg;
Premium flour (wheat) - ½ cup.

A step-by-step process for recreating a culinary delight:

You need to find a cotton thread 25 cm long and thread it through a needle;
Crush the walnuts (their kernels) a little, and leave the hazelnuts in their original form;
Nuts should be put on the thread, leaving its end free (about 4 cm). This tip must be wound on an ordinary match and tied in a knot, securing it in this way;
Next, you need to add flour to 300 ml of juice and mix thoroughly until a homogeneous mass without lumps;
The remaining 700 ml of juice should be poured into a pre-prepared container (pot) and put on the stove (on minimum heat). Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally;
Upon reaching the beginning of the boil, it is necessary to add the pre-obtained mass of juice and flour there, mix thoroughly;
At this stage, you can taste the dish and sweeten it slightly (it all depends on the grape variety from which the juice is made);
The ingredients are cooked until a sticky thick mass is formed;
The resulting product must be cooled to a temperature of about 55 degrees and put our nuts strung on a thread there. All nuts should be covered in an even layer;
Next, the “nut beads” must be removed and allowed to dry for several minutes, then placed back in the pan. This procedure is done until a layer of congealed grape juice about 2 cm thick is formed on the nuts;
At the final stage, the resulting Churchkhela must be thoroughly dried. It will need to be hung in a convenient place (it can be on a clothesline on the balcony) and left in this position for several weeks (the remnants of the flowing juice can leave unpleasant surprises on the floor, so you should lay paper or substitute a baking sheet);
The complete readiness of sweetness is determined by the hardness of the top layer and the soft filling inside. It is recommended to store this Georgian delicacy wrapped in a linen towel at room temperature.

From the remaining juice, you can additionally make sweets. The juice must be poured into small molds, add the ground nuts there and let them harden.

Types of churchkhela and cooking features in different countries

The most common are Armenian churchkhela, Imeretian and Kakhetian.

The Kakheti recipe is different in that grape juice is chosen in the form of the most pressed fractions with a high content of extractives. The resulting juice is additionally settled for 12 hours, then filtered and evaporated until a thick mass is obtained.

During cooking, chalk or marble flour can be added to reduce the acidity of the dish. X A well-aged Churchkhela has flavors reminiscent of chocolate. You can add raisins and apricot, peach pits to the filling.

Georgian chefs know how to cook other versions of this sweet delicacy, changing the filling and the quality of the flour.

Churchkhela is a Georgian patented national delicacy, without which not a single feast is complete in Georgia. Moreover, this dessert is also loved in Armenia and Turkey. Armenia even tried to prove that it was the discoverer of churchkhela in wide circles. But still, whatever one may say, the disputes have ceased, because churchkhela, a primordially Georgian delicacy, there is even historical evidence for this. The sources speak of how Georgian warriors, fighting with the enemy, took churchkhela with them and could continue the campaign for a long period, eating this nourishing product. In dark clothes, they hid under the cover of night and ambushed the enemy, as soon as he lit a fire and exposed himself. The Georgian warriors themselves did without a fire and hot food.

But let's not go too far into history. Slavic people in our time fell in love with churchkhela when they met on sea beaches and markets. Most often, this oriental sweetness is found in the resort towns of the Black Sea coast.

Having tried once, no one remains indifferent. And when there is demand, then the supply grows. Therefore, churchkhela today can no longer be called a curiosity; you can buy it even in large supermarkets. Consequently, unscrupulous sellers also make themselves felt, using not pure grape juice as the basis for delicacy, but various artificial impurities, adding flavors, flavor enhancers and chemical thickeners. Therefore, it is very correct that you wondered how to cook churchkhela at home.

First, let's figure out what juices this so-called “Georgian Snickers” is made of. You have already noticed that the color of churchkhela is different, from white, yellow, green to red, burgundy and even black. It depends on the grape variety. It is the variety and color of the grapes that gives churchkhela its distinctive color and taste. In the origins of this national dish, only ripe and sweet grapes have always been used. Now, pomegranate and other juices are often added to churchkhela. To begin with, we will consider the primitive recipe for churchkhela, which has been prepared by Georgian housewives for centuries.

Traditional Georgian churchkhela

So, how to make churchkhela at home, touching the origins of its appearance, having tried a truly traditional recipe? It is worth knowing that for this it is better to plan the preparation of churchkhela in two days and step by step. On the first day, Georgians always cook badags. Badagi is a concentrate of grape juice, which is obtained by boiling the juice. And the Georgians cook it on low heat for 5-6 hours, until the liquid is boiled down to half the original volume. Badagi becomes concentrated and cloyingly sweet. To prepare badaga, you can take any grapes, after squeezing or grinding the berries and straining the juice through cheesecloth or a fine sieve. Traditionally, churchkhela was always prepared in September, when the harvest season came. It is also important to prepare a “workplace” at home where ready-made churchkhelas will be dried. It can be a hanging bar or just a hanger, on which we will soon hang Georgian sneakers.

When we have a ready-made grape broth, we can start cooking the churchkhela itself. To do this, take a thread, preferably nylon, if not, you can use a regular one, but then we fold it in half. We determine the length of the thread, given that the length of the churchkhela itself is approximately 20-25 cm + a margin for a loop, for which we will subsequently hang a delicacy to dry. We thread the thread into a thin needle and string it like beads, nuts.

For the filling, mainly walnuts are used, but you can also opt for hazelnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, raisins, and even peach or apricot kernels. The latter, however, must first be soaked in water until the skin comes off and boiled for several minutes in sugar syrup. Walnuts for the preparation of churchkhela must be well dried, otherwise the product will quickly begin to deteriorate. Do not fry the nuts in a pan, then the kernels will become brittle, and you simply will not be able to populate them on a thread. It is enough to slightly dry the nuts in the oven at a temperature of 20-30 degrees.

While you are making blanks, threading nuts on a thread, put the pre-prepared badagi on the fire. When the grape syrup begins to boil, you need to add flour to it. In western Georgia, corn flour has always been used, while eastern Georgia preferred to cook churchkhela from wheat flour. It does not matter which flour you choose, the main thing is the proportions - for 3 liters of badagi, about 1 kg of flour. You need to add the flour mixture little by little, stirring constantly so that lumps do not form. Adding sugar if the grapes are not worth it is considered bad manners in Georgia, besides, it should be borne in mind that when the badagi cools down, it becomes even sweeter. Grape jelly-like mass should be simmered over low heat for about 15-20 minutes. Next, dip the nut "beads" into the grape "jelly", helping yourself with a wooden spatula, so that each nut is covered with the mixture.

How to cook churchkhela so that it turns out thick (“fleshy”)? In fact, the whole relish of churchkhela is in the grape shell, so the rougher it is, the tastier. To do this, you need to re-dip the "beads" into the broth, after giving time to dry a little for the first layer. Hanging churchkhelas should dry out in a well-ventilated, dry place for about 5-7 days. Do not worry if it seems to you that the dessert turned out not as glossy as you saw it on the shelves. The fact is that, having dried, the churchkhela will acquire the shine you desire, while the finished Georgian Snickers should stop sticking to your hands. That's the whole trick, now you can enjoy, perhaps, the most useful and nutritious treat that contains a lot of organic acids, proteins, vitamins, vegetable fats and fructose. Moreover, churchkhela can be stored in a cool place for a very long time, since Georgians cannot do without it not a single New Year's feast.

Modern churchkhela

The churchkhela recipe implies natural juice in its composition, but today not everyone has the opportunity to cook it from natural grape juice, and then there is the fear of how you wanted to make Georgian Snickers outside of the grape harvest season. Don't be discouraged, it's not a problem. You can make churchkhela from purchased packaged juice, and the choice of flavors in front of you is huge.

So, you may be surprised, but home-made churchkhela from packaged juice is no different from a store-bought one. For cooking, we need all the same ingredients that were indicated in the previous recipe, only in different proportions and using a different technology. We put on gas 1 liter of juice, boil for 5-7 minutes. At this time, carefully dissolve 1 glass of flour in a glass of cold juice so that lumps do not form to the state of liquid sour cream. Next, gradually pour the flour mixture into the hot juice in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Cook for 7-10 minutes until the mixture loses the floury flavor. Add sugar to taste (still, purchased juices are not as sweet as natural), if desired, you can add more vanillin, cinnamon or cardamom. Subsequently, the technology of dipping and “drying” churchkhela does not differ from the previous recipe, you should succeed. A few days of patience and you can enjoy a delicious and healthy dessert.