Texas Gold

Original recipe from college

Texas Pecan Pie

One of my fondest memories of growing up in Houston, Texas is picking pecans out of my Grandma’s backyard in The Heights. Imagine six kids running around the yard in the sticky heat, grabbing shirt-fulls and buckets of these smooth nuggets in great anticipation of the bounty of money we would earn shelling them for Grandma.  She would pay us one quarter for each cup of pecan pieces, and 50 cents for a cup of whole halves. We could become rich in a matter of hours! Texas Gold!

But the reality of riches quickly dissipated after an hour or two. After eating more than half of what I shelled and still not old enough to cleanly crack and shell a pecan, I was usually left with a half a cup of pecan pieces and perhaps three whole halves sitting in the bottom of that 50 cent cup. This would happen year after year, but it never made the anticipation any less each time!

When I left for The University of Texas in 1981, I spent one of my first Thanksgivings away from my family. My parents had since moved to Ohio for a spell (they came back!) and I was bemoaning the fact I couldn’t have my Grandma’s pecan pie on that Thankful day. I called my mom up and asked for the recipe, which I scribbled down on a piece of notepad. To this day I have that original scrap of paper and use it every year to make my Grandma’s Texas Pecan Pie. And every year my mom sends me a couple of pounds of Texas Pecans, which I use faithfully for that purpose.

Grandma’s Texas Pecan Pie

Makes 2 pies. Can easily be cut in half for one pie.

1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups dark Kayro syrup
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 cup evaporated milk
2 heaping cups of Pecans

Beat the eggs one at a time into the first five ingredients. Mix in the evaporated milk. Stir in 2 heaping cups of pecans. Pour into two unbaked pie crusts. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes or until firm.

Notes: Since I currently live at high altitude, I’ve had to make some adjustments to the original recipe. I add one more tablespoon of flour, and also need to cook it for about 15 minutes longer. Since it has to cook longer, to prevent it from burning the crust and top, I wrap foil around the pie crust edges before putting in the oven. At about 45 minutes, I loosely lay a piece of foil over the top.