Pecan pie, in coffee cups
The recipe as Mavis says it, and as Yvette measured it.
Thibodeaux Table · a free letter on Sundays
One recipe, one story and one very old oven
A short letter from Mavis and Yvette Thibodeaux, a mother and daughter baking in Lafayette, Louisiana: one recipe, the story behind it and a photograph from the kitchen.
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Recipe
Pecan pie, in coffee cups
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 55 min
- Total
- 1 h 50 min
- Serves
- 8 slices
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 1/4 cups (160 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (115 g) cold butter, cubed
- 3 to 4 tablespoons ice water
Filling
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (180 ml) cane syrup or dark corn syrup
- 4 tablespoons (55 g) melted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups (150 g) pecan halves
Method
- Rub the cold butter into the flour and salt until it looks like coarse crumbs, then stir in the water a spoonful at a time until the dough holds together.
- Press the dough into a disc, wrap it and chill for 30 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Roll the dough out, lay it in a 9-inch pie dish and crimp the edge.
- Whisk the eggs, brown sugar, syrup, melted butter, vanilla and salt until smooth.
- Scatter the pecans over the crust and pour the filling over them.
- Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until the centre is just set and only wobbles a little.
- Cool for at least two hours before slicing.
“The one email I read slowly on a Sunday morning, with coffee and whatever is left of the biscuits.”
RuthReader since letter 12
Two things for the kitchen
When a recipe a week is not enough. Both are yours to keep.
The Kitchen Booklet
$12A printable booklet of twelve family recipes with the cup measures and the grams.
Mother and daughter
Who is in the kitchen
One of us measures with a coffee cup. The other weighs it and writes it down.
the one who bakes
Mavis Thibodeaux
Mavis has baked from memory for fifty years and measures with a coffee cup.
the one who writes it down
Yvette Thibodeaux-Marsh
Yvette weighs everything her mother pours and turns it into a recipe.
Hello, we're Mavis and Yvette
We are Mavis and Yvette, mother and daughter, baking in the same Lafayette kitchen where Mavis learned from her own mother. Mavis cooks by feel and by coffee cup. Yvette weighs everything and writes it down.
Every week we send one recipe, the story behind it and a photograph from the kitchen, so the measurements stay in the family and in your inbox.
Classes and cakes
We teach small baking classes in our kitchen in Lafayette and bake cakes and pies to order. Tell us what you have in mind and we will reply within a week.
Baking class
from $65Two hours at our kitchen table for up to six people, with flour on everyone and something to take home.
Cakes and pies to order
from $40A pie or a cake for a table of eight, baked in our old oven with a week's notice.