Walk into any Lowcountry kitchen where a pan of chewies is baking, and the scent of decadent sweetness is unmistakable. The humble pantry ingredients of brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, pecans, and vanilla transform into a sweet iconic baked good. That baked good—chewies—has been a staple in the Gullah Geechee community for generations. Chewies are a celebratory dessert and are traditionally served at Sunday dessert tables and holidays, though baker Faith deLeon Alston maintains, “Anytime can be a good time for a chewie.”
This dessert with a sweet butter and brown sugar flavor—accentuated by nuts—is traditionally dusted with confectioners’ sugar once it is cooled, then cut into small squares before serving. Although definitive details of the origin of this dessert are murky, chef BJ Dennis says, “All I know is that it’s rooted in the old molasses, brown sugar, cane syrup-based Gullah Geechee sweets.”
The culinary technique of making chewies is closer to the method of candy making than it is to the method of making a brownie. The flour is a secondary element to the butter and sugars. Butter begins the baking process when it is melted and cooled before eggs are incorporated, and the result is a distant, richer, more melt-in-your-mouth cousin to the blondie.
Chewies are now being offered for sale by professional cooks, bakers, and caterers. These four narrators are gatekeepers of the transition of the chewie from home to professional kitchens. These bakers have roots in the Gullah Geechee community of the Lowcountry, and they all offer their own version of chewies to the public.
These narrators illustrate tremendous creativity when it comes to adapting the standard chewie recipe. Not only have they all made their own tweaks to recipes passed to them by elders, they have taken the idea of the chewie batter and expanded it. Chewies now come in flavors ranging from red velvet cake to banana pudding. They’re mixed into ice cream and pound cakes. And some are even formed into crusts for no-bake cheesecakes.
With millions of tourists visiting the Charleston, South Carolina, metro area, any food item offered on professional menus has the potential to explode in popularity. Southern Living magazine published a chewie recipe for the first time in Spring 2023, and some of the bakers interviewed do ship their chewies nationwide. Nevertheless, for now the chewie is, as narrator Nate Brown states, still an “if you know, you know” Lowcountry dessert. Its simple ingredients and decidedly decadent flavor speaks to tradition and ingenuity.
