In many Black Sea resorts, as well as in the Caucasus, you can try a huge number of goodies. It's just a sweet tooth paradise! Of course, such products can be purchased locally, in grocery stores and supermarkets, however, cooked according to traditional recipes by hand, they are much tastier and, accordingly, more useful, since they are guaranteed to consist of natural ingredients. Churchkhela also belongs to such delicacies.

Product Information

The mentioned variety of sweets is of eastern origin. The name of the product is Georgian and translates as "a treat with dried seedless berries." Churchkhela is widespread in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Turkey, on the southern coast of Crimea, in Abkhazia, the Mediterranean regions and, of course, in Georgia, from where it, in fact, leads its history. This delicacy is known since ancient times, more specifically - from the era of David the Builder. Then the Georgian soldiers used to make quite long conquests. As a provision, brave men took with them products that are highly nutritious and have a long shelf life in the most inappropriate conditions. Churchkhela met the specified requirements, and therefore became the basis of the edible reserves of Georgian fighters.

Currently, the eastern delicacy has many varieties. In addition to traditional Georgian, there are also Gurian, Mingrelian, Rachin, Imereti and other types of churchkhela. The classic type of sweet product is called Kakheti churchkhela. It was her recipe that Georgians developed at one time. It involves the inclusion in the product of nuts (walnuts, almonds, forest), sweet nucleoli apricot and peach drupes, raisins. The basis of oriental sweetness is grape juice obtained from white grape varieties, including its press fractions. To clarify, the liquid base is boiled for 30 minutes, and after about 10 hours they stand in a row. Then the grape juice is filtered, evaporated and defended again. A viscous mass is obtained, which is heated and combined with wheat flour, turning into a thick mixture by continuous stirring.

The next step in the production of traditional churchkhela is immersion in a grape and flour base of nuts strung on a thread and drying of the treats for a couple of hours. This procedure is repeated until a layer of frozen grape juice is 2 cm. The finished churchkhela must be dried in the sun for about 15 days.

After the product is laid in boxes in layers. Each layer is coated with natural fabric material. Boxes with delicacy are put in a cool place and left there for several months, waiting for the ripening of oriental sweets.

The manufacturing process of all types of churchkhela is close to that of the Kakheti variety. The difference is only in the nuances and in the ingredients used in the production of goodies. As a liquid component of churchkhela, grape juice of various varieties is used, as well as pomegranate juice. In addition to the nuts listed above for the filling, also take roasted peanuts, pistachios, cashews.

Churchkhela Composition

Churchkhela is a delicacy with high nutritional value. Up to 50% of the total mass of the sweet product is carbohydrates: a combination of fructose with glucose. Fats are also present in it, but they are 4 times less than sugars. As for protein, 100 g of churchkhela contains only 15 g of protein.

The grape juice from which the Georgian sweet product is made is rich in organic acids, vitamins A, PP, C, group B; micro and macro elements, in particular, phosphorus, iron, zinc, sodium, copper. In it, and therefore in churchkhel, it is full of biologically active substances with antioxidant properties. They are called flavonoids, and if it comes to red grape juice or pomegranate juice, then anthocyanins.

The benefits of churchkhela

Natural oriental delicacy is a very valuable product from the point of view of healing the human body. In principle, this is already clear from information about its chemical composition. Churchkhela treats the heart, makes the walls of blood vessels more elastic, and helps lower the level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood. Thus, this type of Georgian sweets must be eaten by people suffering from atherosclerosis, hypertension, and various diseases of the heart muscle.

Churchkhela's regular treat enhances blood formation in the body, reduces blood viscosity, frees the body from accumulated toxins and toxins, and energizes. Eastern sweetness is useful in diseases of the joints - arthritis, arthrosis, rheumatism, gout. Churchkhel should be eaten by people with anemia, low immunity, and problems with the liver and kidneys. Those types of goodies, which include a mixture of grape juice with pomegranate juice, should include women with painful and heavy periods, as well as PMS in their diet.

The use of churchkhela gives a good mood, tones and at the same time calms the nerves, protects against stress, activates the brain, protects against cancer and slows down aging. An oriental treat is ideal for afternoon snacks and lunch, as it satisfies hunger for a long time. The caloric content of 100 g of the product is from 400 to 500 kcal, depending on the specific ingredients.

Harmful goodies

In addition to the incredible benefits, eating churchkhela can be dangerous to human health.

First of all, this applies to people with diabetes. They generally do not want to eat this oriental delicacy because of the enormous amount of carbohydrates in it. Otherwise, you can provoke a jump in the level of glucose in the blood up and aggravate your well-being.

Do not get involved in eating churchkhela for overweight people. This is fraught with an increase in body weight, since we are dealing with a high-calorie product.

Contraindications to the use of Georgian sweets are cirrhosis of the liver, severe tuberculosis, pregnancy (from the 4th month until the end of the gestation period), an allergy to nuts and other delicacies. For urination disorders and a tendency to flatulence, churchkhela is also undesirable to eat.

Homemade Churchkhela Recipe

As a rule, the cost of Georgian sweets does not allow the bulk of Russian consumers to eat it regularly or whenever they want. There is a way out of this situation: we must learn how to cook this delicious nutritious product on our own at home.

You will need: 2 liters of grape juice, 200 g of wheat flour, 350 g of any nuts.

Cooking process. Take a glass liter jar and pour half of the juice into it. Let him stand aside for now. Pour the other half of the liquid into a saucepan, put it on the stove, bring the juice to a boil, and then simmer on low heat for 10-15 minutes.

While the first part of the liquid is boiling, take care of the other part of the grape juice. You need to add flour to it and mix both ingredients, avoiding the appearance of lumps in the mass. Slowly pour this mixture into the grape juice boiling on the stove in the pan. Now boil it for 20 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally.

After the specified time has elapsed, thread the nuts strung on them, dip them alternately in jelly from flour and grape juice. Then they need to let them dry a little - for this, hang ready-made “sausages”. After drying, dip the nut ligaments again in a thick liquid and do this until the churchkhela has the required thickness. Dry the treat well in the end.

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Surely many people saw on the markets in shops with nuts, dried fruits and oriental sweets churchkhela - very tasty and peculiar. Churchkhela is a national Georgian sweet, it is very useful because it is prepared from natural ingredients without the addition of sugar. Churchkhela is based on nuts, which are covered in several layers of juice. Churchkhela is most often made from grape or pomegranate juice, but other juices can also be used, such as apple, raspberry or apricot. In any case, it will be delicious!

Churchkhela Composition

• Grape or pomegranate juice - 1 liter. The most delicious churchkhela is made from freshly squeezed juice with pulp, but you can also buy it.
• Wheat flour - half a cup.
• Peeled nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts) - 500 g.
• You will also need a sturdy needle and thick cotton thread for stringing nuts.

How to cook churchkhela

Take a thread about 30 cm long with a needle and string nuts on a thread. It is advisable to stock up on a thimble, because the nuts are quite solid, and stringing them with bare hands is difficult. You can string both whole nuts and halves (then churchkhela will be thinner or you need to dip it more in juice). It is necessary to string so that the upper end of the thread about 5 cm is free - for it we will keep churchkhela. When we finish stringing nuts on a thread, we fix its end with a match: we wrap a match with a thread and tie it.

About a half glasses of juice are slowly mixed with flour, mixing well so that there are no lumps. Pour the rest of the juice into a saucepan and put on a small fire. Stir the juice periodically, and when it boils, add a mixture of flour and juice. Keep stirring. Juice must be boiled to the consistency of a very thick jelly. Let the juice cool down to about 50 degrees Celsius. After that, take a thread with nuts and dip it into the pan for a minute and a half, so that all nuts are covered with juice. We take out the thread, dry for five minutes - during this time we dip the remaining threads with nuts into the juice. Then we repeat the procedure with each thread several times until the nuts are covered with a layer of juice 1.5-2 cm. Done - churchkhela can be dried. In fact, it is dried for several weeks so that the top layer of juice hardens and remains soft inside the churchkhela. But you can eat this yummy on the same day, if you really want to.

Churchkhela can be dried on a rope specially hung in the kitchen. Under the rope, you should put paper so that later you do not have to wash the entire kitchen from drops of juice.

Those who visit the south of our country for the first time in their life, especially with great bewilderment, look at small multi-colored sausages sold at bazaars and beaches. They are especially surprised by their unusual name - churchkhela. What is it and how it is being prepared, we will try to find out now.

This is a national delicacy of oriental cuisine. Despite the fact that it is widespread both in Armenia, and in Georgia, and in Azerbaijan, as well as in Greece, Georgians consider churchkhela to be originally their "invention", and even applied for a patent for it. Now, along with khachapuri, chacha and suluguni, churchkhela is the Georgian brand.

Low nut, covered with dried boiled fruit juice. According to legends, this delicacy appeared in antiquity, when warriors, going on hikes, took tasty and nutritious sausages with them, which did not require any hassle in preparation and perfectly restore strength. Since it was often necessary to fight, churchkhela was procured for the future, not being afraid that it would deteriorate. It will definitely last a year, and from the next harvest you can make new tasty sausages with nuts called churchkhela. What is it - you already have an idea. Now let's talk about how it is cooked.

How to cook churchkhela at home

To prepare this product, you will need to stock up on nuts, grape juice, sugar, flour and a harsh cotton thread with a needle. You can take any nuts, although walnuts are traditionally used and are strung on a thread whole, and the walnut kernels are divided into two halves. The optimal length of the nutty low is about 30 cm. This is just enough to ensure that a thick decoction of juice, called Tatara, can cover it with a dense layer. And it is best to choose the length of the thread depending on the depth of the pan in which the syrup will be cooked. The dependence here is this - it should be low completely immersed in the Tatars without bends and kinks.

After all the nuts are tightly strung, you can do cooking Tatars. Three liters of freshly squeezed grape juice is poured into a saucepan (it is advisable not to use an enameled one), a glass of sugar is added to it, all this is put on a small fire. You need to boil the juice with constant stirring until its volume is reduced by half. Do not forget that the foam formed during the cooking process must be removed. What turned out in the end, the Georgians call Badagi.

Pour about a couple of glasses of badagi into a wide bowl and cool the contents. Bred in a cooled syrup two glasses of flour, carefully breaking the lumps formed. To ensure uniformity of mass, it can be wiped through a sieve at the end. We connect both parts of the juice and again send to the fire. Do not leave the stove. You must constantly stir the mass, otherwise it will burn. After the contents of the pan thicken and acquire a luster, you can turn off the fire and consider the process of cooking the Tatars finished.

Letting it cool slightly, take a nutty low and dip it whole in a hot mass. After waiting about 20 seconds, we take out the thread, let it drain to the last drops, and send it to dry. After two hours, repeat the entire sequence of actions. Ideally, the Tatars should reach one and a half centimeters.

Since you will have to make churchkhela in this way for a long time, you can slightly reduce the total time for preparing goodies by tying several threads with nuts to the rail at once and dip them into the tartar at the same time. After you consider that the layer thickness satisfies you, send the semi-finished churchkhela for a couple of weeks in the sun to dry. Readiness can be judged by touch - if it does not stick to your hands, then drying can be considered finished. Now you need to wrap the sausages in a cloth and leave to ripen. After a month, you can treat your admired loved ones with a treat called Churchkhela.

What is it, you now know and, as a true culinary specialist, you can engage in experimentation by changing varieties of nuts and fruit juices. And you can do without a thread, just by mixing the finished Tatara with nuts. This will, of course, not churchkhela in the classical sense, but no less tasty treat.

Oriental cuisine has always been famous for its sweets. Among which one of the places of honor is churchkhela. This traditional Georgian delicacy is also widely distributed (under different names) in the territory of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and even in Cyprus.

Product Description

Churchkhela is a kind of stick of 25-30 cm long made of elastic but soft edible shell (thickened juice), inside of which there are nuts.

It tastes like fruit caramel or marshmallow with nuts. After prolonged storage, it tastes like chocolate. Often it is called "Georgian Snickers."

Each region has its own subtleties and technological methods of making sweets, so its appearance and taste are different. For its preparation, not only nuts and grape juice can be used. You can use pumpkin seeds, apricot kernel seeds, dried apricots, prunes, raisins and other dried fruits together with nuts or instead of them. Grape juice is replaced by other types of juice. The sweetness made from pomegranate juice is considered more refined and expensive.

Imereti, Abkhazian, Mingrelian, Gurian and other varieties of churchkhela are known. But the most famous among them is Kakhetian.

Churchkhela is such a popular dessert in Georgia that not a single celebration can do without it. And in 2011, the Georgian authorities received a patent for some traditional national dishes, including churchkhela.

How to cook churchkhela at home

The secret to the preparation of this oriental sweet was handed down in the Caucasus from generation to generation for many hundreds of years. Now it, like many years ago, is often made in a handicraft way. Prepare it in several stages:

1. Juice preparation. If necessary, the acidity of the juice is reduced by adding chalk to it. Then the juice is boiled for half an hour, defended for about 10 hours, filtered, evaporated in a special boiler until a sugar level of 30-40% is obtained. The boiled juice is again defended for 5-6 hours, then the precipitate is drained.
2. Preparation of nuts. Raw nuts are used to make sweets. But they must be ripe and dry. Roasted nuts may be slightly bitter and difficult to string. Sometimes the kernels are soaked in water to peel them or boil a little in a sugar solution. Finished nuts are threaded.
3. Syrup preparation. The prepared juice is heated to 30 °, flour is added to it and cooked over low heat, stirring continuously, until it thickens.
4. Covering nuts with syrup. A string of strung nuts is dipped in a thick syrup and suspended so that the syrup freezes a little. After a few hours, the procedure is repeated, and so several times until the juice layer on top of the nuts is 1.5-2 cm. It must be taken into account that a very hot mixture will quickly drain off the thread and the cooled one will stick lumps.
5. Drying out. The resulting churchkhela is dried in the sun for 2-3 weeks, until the outer layer hardens, while the product should remain soft.
6. Sugaring The dried dessert is stacked in a box, paving each layer with parchment paper or cloth. The next 2-3 months, the sweetness ripens and acquires its original taste and appearance.
     Adhering to the classical technology, churchkhela is easy to cook on your own at home.

Chemical composition and calorie content

Churchkhela is a rather high-calorie and satisfying treat. On average, its calorie content is about 400 kilocalories per 100 g. But all calories are easily absorbed by the body.

Churchkhela cooked accordingly with the classic recipe (from walnuts and grape juice), contains:

• Fructose and glucose (30 to 50%);
• Vegetable fats (approximately 15% -25%);
• Proteins (about 5%);
• Organic acids (about 1%);
• Vitamins (B, C, E);
• Trace elements.

There are many varieties of this sweetness. They are slightly different in their chemical composition and calorie content.

Useful properties and contraindications

Churchkhela - the product is not only tasty, but also healthy.

The grape juice from which it is prepared has many useful properties. It lowers cholesterol, improves metabolism, is useful for people with a sick stomach, lungs, liver, heart, and also serves as a prevention of cancer.

Nuts also have beneficial effects on human health and well-being. After all, they contain useful vegetable fats, a complex of vitamins and minerals, as well as volatile (biologically active substances that inhibit the development of pathogenic bacteria).

In addition to all the beneficial properties, it has sweetness and contraindications. It is not recommended for people:

• overweight;
• patients with diabetes;
• with disorders of the urinary system;
• having advanced form of tuberculosis;
• suffering from cirrhosis of the liver;
• pregnant women in the later stages;
• allergic to product components.

Churchkhela has a huge advantage over sweets and other sweets - it is made entirely from natural ingredients.

Oriental cuisine is known for its delicious and original dishes. But churchkhela is at the head of the Caucasian sweets. This traditional oriental delicacy has been known since time immemorial. During archaeological excavations, vessels of a special form with inscriptions were discovered that indicate that churchkhela was transported in these vessels. However, despite such a long history of existence, the tradition of making this delicacy has survived to the present day. Churchkhela is based on nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds) and juice, most often grape, although you can use pomegranate, apple and others - it will be delicious anyway. The manufacturing techniques of churchkhela in different areas are significantly different, hence the diversity of taste.

How to cook churchkhela at home

Churchkhela at home, cooked according to old recipes - a wonderful treat. Walnut slices are strung on a thread, after which it is all dipped in a bowl with thickened boiled grape juice, which should cover each nut. Then the thread is removed and dried in the sun. After a few hours, the procedure is repeated until a layer of a couple of centimeters forms on top of the nuts, after which the thread with the nuts is dried in the sun for two weeks. Churchkhela is then put in boxes for two to three months, after which the delicacy acquires a wonderful taste and appearance - nuts covered with sweet, dried grape juice.

Useful properties and caloric value of churchkhela

As you know, churchkhela is not only tasty, but also healthy. In ancient times, soldiers took it with them on a camping trip - this product is very nutritious and unpretentious in storage.

• Nuts contain 2-3 times more potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and iron than in fruits, and the protein content is 16-25%.
• Grapes ranks first in the content of easily assimilated glucose and fructose (12-18%). In addition, 100 gr. it contains 0.8-1% of organic acids and more than 20 microelements, 250 mg of potassium, 45 mg of calcium, 22 mg of phosphorus, 17 mg of magnesium, iron, cobalt and other minerals, as well as vitamins necessary for normal functioning of the body. Grape juice is considered one of the most valuable medicinal, dietary and food products. Pectin substances contained in grapes in large quantities are able to lower cholesterol. Therefore, it is useful for diseases of the lungs, stomach, liver, gout, coronary heart disease, etc. Thanks to its antioxidant properties, grapes are used to prevent cardiovascular and oncological diseases. Studies have shown that the composition of grapes is similar to mineral water. Therefore, its juice, refreshing and toning, has a therapeutic effect.
• Wheat used to make churchkhela contains 50-70% starch and carbohydrates, essential amino acids and protein, vegetable fats and fiber. In addition, it contains the most important trace elements and vitamins.

A lot of useful substances contained in the treat, not only improves well-being, but also brings a huge charge of vivacity. Churchkhela calorie content is 410 kcal per 100 g. product. However, this dish, having many advantages, has a number of contraindications.

Churchkhela contraindications

This high-calorie product is not recommended for obese people. Churchkhela should not be used for patients with diabetes. Liver cirrhosis, urination disorders, the second half of pregnancy, advanced forms of tuberculosis, even allergic reactions to nuts and grapes can serve as contraindications. In these cases, consult a doctor.

But first of all, churchkhela is a delicacy that, when used in reasonable quantities, can deliver a lot of positive emotions. A kind of charge of vivacity, which is so necessary for residents of both a large metropolis and a small town, where stress lies in wait at every step of the person. Tasty, compact and at the same time nutritious - it was not for nothing that churchkhela was taken on a campaign by warriors in the distant times when the preservation of strength and health was most important.