Walnuts threaded on a string, dipped repeatedly in grape-must syrup, dried into chewy sweet ropes — Macedonian autumn-harvest candy.
Soutzouk lokum (also called churchkhela in nearby Georgia, which claims the same technique) is the autumn harvest treat of Macedonia and northern Greece — and a high-energy food that mountain villagers carried as travel food. Strings of walnuts are dipped repeatedly in thickened grape must (must syrup, called 'petimezi' in Greek), each dip adding another layer until the candy is the thickness of a finger. Dried for days, then sliced like sausage.
Walnut halves strung on cotton thread, then dipped repeatedly in thickened grape molasses — much like Georgian churchkhela but eaten as candy slices. Cracks audibly when bitten, then chews into faintly fermented sweetness.
Grape molasses (petimezi) is thickened with wheat flour, whose starch gelatinizes when heated and sets the high-sugar syrup into a firm coating as it cools — the same flour-thickened must (called tatara/pelamushi for Georgian churchkhela) is what lets each dipped layer harden. Drying weeks improve the flavor through slow oxidation.
Variations
Macedonian soutzouk lokum uses walnut; Black Sea versions use hazelnut; Pontic refugees brought both techniques to Greece — three nuts, one syrup.
On the Palate
Where Soutzouk Lokum sits in the Greek flavor cloud
Ingredients
How it's made
5 steps · 4 hours
- 1180 min
Make petimezi: simmer 1L fresh grape juice with no added sugar, reducing slowly over 3-4 hours to a thick syrup the consistency of honey (or buy ready petimezi).
- 25 min
Thread 200g shelled walnut halves on cotton strings about 30cm long, leaving a loop at the top for hanging.
- 310 min
Whisk 100g flour into 200ml of cold petimezi until lump-free; combine with the rest of the petimezi in a tall narrow pot and simmer 10 min until thickened to a coating consistency.
Watch outSimmer the flour-and-must mix, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon like thick custard — too thin won't cling to the walnuts, too thick sets before you can dip.
- 430 min
Dip each walnut string into the hot syrup, coat fully, hang to dry 30 min. Repeat dipping 4-5 times, letting each layer dry between, until the string is finger-thick.
Watch outLet each coat dry to touch-dry before the next dip — rush it and the layers slide off; five patient dips build it up to finger-thick.
- 54 min
Hang in a dry, ventilated space 4-7 days until fully set. Slice into rounds to eat; keeps 2 months at room temperature.
Watch outHang in dry air a week until fully firm and no longer sticky — the slow drying is where the deep flavor comes from, so don't cut it short.
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