Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Round Top’s Fall Antiques Week with this local specialty.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Round Top’s Fall Antiques Week. To commemorate the impressive benchmark, we asked Bud “the Pieman” Royer, owner of Royers Round Top Café in Round Top, Texas, to share a recipe for one of the 40-seat restaurant’s specialties. He was more than happy to share the recipe for pecan pie. Listed as Ann’s Pecan Pie on the Royers menu, the recipe is pulled from Texas The Beautiful Cookbook (Shearer Publishing, 1986), co-edited by former Houston Chronicle food editor Ann Criswell.
Ann’s Pecan Pie
(Yields 1 10-inch pie)
Filling
⅓ cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 10-inch pie crust, preferably Royers Round Top Café’s pie crust (recipe follows)
1½ cups pecan halves
Royers Round Top Cafe - Moger Media
The Café’s Pie Crust
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup water
2 cups (minus 3 tablespoons) shortening
5 cups white flour
Dissolve the salt in the water and set aside. Cut the vegetable shortening into the flour, working the mixture thoroughly until it is crumbly. Add salt water to the mixture and continue to work the dough until the water is absorbed. Add several tablespoons of flour and continue to work the dough until it pulls cleanly away from your hands. Ball the dough up into three balls. Put them in plastic baggies and freeze them till you need them.
To use the dough, set it out on the counter to thaw for 3 – 4 hours or set in your refrigerator overnight. The dough is rolled out the easiest when it is chilled.
Combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup, salt and vanilla in a bowl: mix well. Beat the eggs until very light. Add to corn syrup mixture. Pour into pie shell. Arrange the pecan halves on top. Bake at 350 degrees until the filling is set and a knife inserted comes out clean.
For more information about Royers Round Top Café and to mail order their pies, visit the restaurant’s website.
