Guubat: The Caucasus’ region most delicious sweet treat with nuts and honey (RECIPE)
The sweet delicacy known as "guubat" is a favorite treat among both children and adults when drinking tea in the republics of the Caucasus. The combination of tender dough, honey and nuts will win the heart and stomach of even the most sophisticated and discerning gourmet.
The culinary art of people living in Adygea, one of the Caucasian region republics, was formed over the course of many centuries. In addition to consuming lots of meat and dairy products, honey occupied a central place in the diet of the Adygs. A high-calorie and nutritious item containing many vitamins, honey is also one of the main components of local sweet flour-based dishes.
One of these is guubat, a traditional square–shaped Adyghe pastry made in the form of several layers of dough stuffed with ground walnuts, sugar and honey. Guubat is baked for important social events, for family holidays and for treating guests to something special.
Guubat does not look like an ordinary small pie, since the dough is more like dough for dumplings. But after cooking guubat, you will be surprised that it looks more like a pastry. In Adygea, guubat is served with tea or pear juice.
Despite the simplicity of the ingredients and the method of preparation, guubat has become one of the most popular pastries, which is produced in large quantities in mini-bakeries and sold everywhere, eagerly scooped up and consumed by residents and guests to Adygea.
There are two types of guubat – unleavened with cheese, and sweet with nuts and honey. Today, I suggest we cook sweet multi-layered guubat pies. They will be a great addition to a tea party for family and friends.
Ingredients for 15 pieces:
For the dough:
- Flour - 350 g
- Sour cream 10% - 150 g
- Egg - 2
- Sugar - 2 tsps
- Soda - ⅓ tsp
- Salt - 1 pinch
For the filling:
- Sugar - 90 g
- Walnuts - 90 g
- Honey - to taste
- Butter - 60 g
Preparation:
1. Let’s prepare the dough. Sift the flour with soda, sugar and salt, and mix together.
2. Next, beat in the eggs and, adding a little sour cream, begin to knead the dough.
3. When you have mixed all the ingredients and the dough has become more or less homogeneous, spread it on your work surface and, gradually adding flour, knead it until you obtain an elastic soft state so that the dough begins to easily come off your hands. After that, cover it with wrap and let it sit for half an hour.
4. Meanwhile, let’s prepare the filling. Grind nuts and sugar into crumbs with a blender.
5. Melt the butter. Preheat the oven to 180℃. Cover the baking sheet with parchment. Spread the dough on a floured surface and divide it into six equal parts. Sprinkle the surface and the first part of the dough with flour, and roll this piece into a rectangular layer as thin as possible, up to about 1 mm thick. Then spread it on parchment. Grease with melted butter, and sprinkle with 1/6 of the filling.
6. After that, do the same with the rest of the dough and the filling, laying out each subsequent layer of dough on the previous one; but don’t forget to grease each layer with melted butter and sprinkle it with the filling.
7. Then transfer the whole pie directly onto parchment and cut it into squares with a sharp knife.
8. Put the parchment paper on the baking sheet again and start forming pies. Fasten the opposite corners of each square. Put in the oven for 20 minutes.
9. Take it out of the oven; let the guubat pies cool for 20 minutes and pour a teaspoon of honey over each pie. Cool completely. Enjoy!
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