Chef’s table: These cast-iron Kahlua Brownies offer an indulgent take on nostalgia

Gretchen McKay | (TNS) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH — Most every restaurant worth its salt (and sugar) has a killer dessert on the menu that assures diners will leave the table on a sweet and happy note.

If it’s prepared on site, that often entails employing a professional pastry chef, which can prove expensive for places that are new and trying to keep costs down while getting established.

That was Cory Hughes’ quandary when he opened Fig & Ash on East Ohio Street in Pittsburgh’s North Side Deutschtown neighborhood with his brother-in-law, Alex Feltovich, in 2020.

Hughes — a former Marine who was an executive chef at Google’s Pittsburgh campus and has also cooked in several restaurants around town including Six Penn Kitchen, Eleven Contemporary Kitchen and Spoon — knew he wanted an approachable dessert that would be easy to plate and, perhaps, lend itself to sharing.

But with limited staff, he also knew he couldn’t go super fancy, at least not right out of the gate.

What he and his culinary staff ended up deciding on after considerable deliberation was a confection that most people have loved since they were kids: an upscale version of a thick and gooey chocolate brownie.

Or as he frames it, “We wanted to do something nostalgic.”

Originally, Hughes thought they might be able to create the dessert using the restaurant’s wood-fired oven. When that proved unsuccessful for various reasons, they opted for the next best thing — making it “camping-style” by cooking it in individual cast-iron skillets.

While the first couple of batches were tasty enough, Hughes says the dessert didn’t prove great until he tweaked the batter with a better chocolate — he uses Callebaut dark chocolate pistoles crafted in Belgium — and added a little Kahlua, a liqueur made with rum, sugar and arabica coffee beans.

“It gave it the flavor I was looking for,” he says. “What goes better after dinner than coffee?”

The result is a gooey brownie with a cakey exterior that reminds Hughes of the chocolate batter he used to lick off a spoon when he was a kid.