Khachapuri – cheese pie by Barbare Jorjadze

Khachapuri or cheese pie by Barbare Jorjadze is not the kind of khachapuri you can try in every Georgian eatery. Recipe N308 in Barbara Jorjadze’s cookbook shows a completely different technique for making khachapuri.

Khachapuri is a very popular dish in Georgia and abroad. Every corner of Georgia can boast a magnificent and unique technique of making khachapuri. There is almost no occasion without khachapuri. To say honestly, I have never seen the one similar to Barbare’s recipe. Thus, it was kind of a challenge for me.
I was doing it for the first time. So, as usual, I started by calculating the ingredients first. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the book is old and the measurements are different than what we use today.

After each step, I became more and more surprised. The process was very interesting. I ended up with a very fluffy, delicate dough, in the spirit of panettone. After I baked it, it was different from the usual dough of Khachapuri. It was more layered-like, slightly crispy pastry.

I should note that Khachapuri – cheese pie by Barbare Jorjadze is not really suitable for beginners; you may need some pastry baking skills at this point. There are no photos in the book, nor the details. Mostly, you have to guess and read between the lines. That’s what I love about her recipes, you never know what’s coming.

Notes:

I used the eggs from our village, so, the dough is more yellowish; besides, the recipe quoted unusually many eggs.
Barbare Jorjadze’s Khachapuri dough is based on the sourdough starter. It’s been a year since I cultivated a sourdough starter, so I’ve used it successfully. Here is the step-by-step link I used for cultivating it. According to the original recipe, Khachapuri is baked in a wood oven or fireplace or Georgian Tone. As for the cheese, I used Imeruli style cheese, but you can successfully use Sulguni as well.