Tavmacaroni

Tavmacaroni, literally head of macaroni, is a layered dessert known only in Adjara, built on the Iukha Feast tradition. Ten or eleven thin iukha dough sheets are each fried and syrup-soaked, then layered with butter or fat and a sugar-and-walnut mixture, finished by pouring sharbat (a one-to-one sugar-water syrup) over the whole stack. The sources are emphatic that it is found nowhere else in Georgia, making it a uniquely Adjaran dish.

Many thin, crisp, syrup-soaked layers stacked with butter and ground walnuts, the sharbat soaking through every stratum so the whole dessert is moist and glossy. Eaten in small pieces, it is sweet, buttery and nutty, dense and festive.

Each thin iukha sheet is fried individually until crisp, then briefly soaked in syrup so it stays structurally intact (you can layer it without it collapsing). The layers are built with a sprinkle of sugar-and-walnut mix and a brush of butter or fat between each sheet. Once the stack is built, hot sharbat syrup is poured over the top and left to soak down through every layer, which takes time and is why it must rest before eating.