Cuisines Guide is a small team from Georgia sharing home-style recipes from around the world – from khinkali and khachapuri to Turkish, Polish, Moroccan and Portuguese classics – explained step by step for home cooks.
👉 Georgian desserts are different from French pastries or American cakes: most of them are built on what grows in Georgia’s vineyards and orchards – grapes, walnuts, honey, persimmons and plums. They are often naturally sweet, made without much sugar, and closely tied to the seasons: churchkhela after the grape harvest, gozinaki for New Year, pelamushi in autumn. Here are 10 traditional Georgian desserts and sweets you should try – with recipes for several of them.
🍇 1. Churchkhela
Georgia’s most famous sweet: walnuts threaded on a string and dipped again and again in thickened grape juice (tatara), then dried for weeks. You will see colourful strings of churchkhela hanging at every market and roadside stall. 👉 Churchkhela recipe
🍮 2. Pelamushi
A soft grape pudding made from fresh grape juice and a little flour or cornmeal, set in bowls and topped with walnuts. It is light, vegan and made every autumn during the rtveli grape harvest. 👉 Pelamushi recipe
🍯 3. Gozinaki
Crunchy diamonds of walnuts caramelised in honey – the essential sweet of the Georgian New Year table and of Christmas. Only two ingredients, and ready in 30 minutes. 👉 Gozinaki recipe
🥮 4. Pakhlava (Adjarian Baklava)
Georgia’s version of baklava from Adjara on the Black Sea coast: thin layers of dough filled with ground walnuts and soaked in honey or sugar syrup. You will find it in every bakery in Batumi, cut into diamonds and served with tea.
🍩 5. Batumi Ponchiki
Soft, fluffy doughnuts filled with warm vanilla custard and dusted with sugar – the taste of summer holidays in Batumi, sold fresh on the beach and in seaside cafés.
🍞 6. Nazuki
A lightly sweet, spiced bread with cinnamon, cloves and raisins, baked in a tone clay oven. The town of Surami is famous for it – travellers stop at the long row of roadside nazuki stalls on the highway between Tbilisi and the west. Read more in our Georgian bread guide.
🍑 7. Chiri (Dried Persimmons)
Persimmons peeled, hung on strings and dried in the autumn sun until they are chewy and covered with a natural sugary bloom. A simple, healthy winter sweet that Georgians eat with walnuts.
🫙 8. Muraba
Georgian preserves of whole fruits, nuts or even vegetables in syrup – green walnut muraba, fig, cherry, quince and watermelon rind are classics. Grandmothers serve a spoonful with tea to every guest.
🍷 9. Tatara
Thickened, cooked grape juice – the base of churchkhela – eaten warm as a pudding, sometimes with walnuts on top. It is very close to pelamushi and is made in huge pots during the harvest.
🌿 10. Tklapi
Thin sheets of fruit leather made from puréed plums, apricots or other fruit, dried in the sun. Sour tklapi is used in cooking (for example in kharcho), while sweet tklapi is rolled up and eaten as a snack.
🎄 Sweets for Georgian Holidays
New Year and Christmas: gozinaki, churchkhela and Napoleon cake are on almost every table. See our Georgian New Year table guide.
Rtveli (grape harvest): pelamushi, tatara and fresh churchkhela. Read about rtveli.
Easter: sweet paska bread and red-dyed eggs.
Many Georgian families also bake a layered Napoleon cake or medovik for birthdays – desserts shared across the former Soviet countries.
❓ FAQ
What is the most famous Georgian dessert? Churchkhela – walnuts coated in thickened grape juice – is the best-known Georgian sweet, often called the “Georgian Snickers”.
Are Georgian desserts very sweet? Most are less sweet than Western desserts, because they rely on grapes, fruit, honey and walnuts rather than lots of sugar.
Are there vegan Georgian desserts? Yes – churchkhela, pelamushi, tatara, chiri and tklapi are all naturally vegan.
