Texas Trash Pie

Few desserts capture a blend of familiar flavors, textures, and foods quite like the Texas Trash Pie. Combining a blend of sweet and salty flavors with creamy and crunchy textures, this pie is a go-to favorite in Texas and beyond.

Learn how to make Texas Trash Pie. Until you can experience the original pie found in Round Top, Texas, this quick and easy recipe will be a perfect way to get your sweet fix with some of the most wonderful flavors found in desserts.

Who Created Texas Trash Pie?

Texas Trash Pie was created in Round Top, Texas, by the Royer family, owners of Royers Round Top Café. This pie is idyllic comfort food with a combination of many common pantry ingredients not customarily found together. The result is an exciting combination of flavors and textures that has now become a memorable dessert staple in the Texas Hill Country.

The name of this dessert implies the combination of every ingredient in the kitchen, but rest assured, this delicious dessert is anything but trash.

Ingredients for Texas Trash Pie

Texas Trash Pie is made with many common baking ingredients and snack food items: chocolate chips, pretzels, graham crackers, shredded coconut, pecans pieces, and butter. Two more unique ingredients—but readily available at any local grocery store—are sweetened condensed milk and caramel bits.

How To Make Texas Trash Pie

This recipe is as easy as combining the ingredients until all the components are well blended. We'll explain how:

• Step 1. Prep pretzels and crackers: Melt butter in a microwave-safe bowl, and set aside. Take your graham crackers and pretzels, and crush lightly until they are in smaller pieces. This step can be done quickly in a few ways: with a few pulses of a food processor, putting ingredients in a large zip-top bag and rolling over them a few times with a rolling pin, or putting the ingredients in a large zip-top bag and dropping them with a bit of force on your counter a few times until the pieces are noticeably smaller.
• Step 2. Mix ingredients: Add all the filling ingredients to a large bowl and stir until everything is well combined. It might look a little messy, but that is completely normal!
• Step 3. Fill and bake: Add this filling to the premade pie shell, and level the filling to make even on top. Place in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the top is golden brown and the filling looks set.

Depending on how your oven bakes, the timing could be shorter, so keep your eye on the pie as timing gets close to 40 minutes.

Variations

This recipe lends itself well to variations and can be as diverse as you'd like it to fit your preferences. Some common alterations of Texas Trash Pie recipes online include using a homemade piecrust instead of premade frozen piecrust; switching the pecans for another type of nut (or a combination of different nuts); or using butterscotch chips instead of the caramel bits.

Something to consider when making alterations to this recipe is to make sure that you keep common equivalents. For instance, if you switch out pecans for another type of nut, or use butterscotch chips instead of caramel bits, make sure you use the exact one-cup measurement as the original recipe.

Best Ways To Serve Texas Trash Pie

The best way to serve Texas Trash Pie is with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream. Because this pie is very sweet, adding a salty element would help balance and enhance the flavors, such as a salted caramel ice cream.

If you are looking for a classic experience like you might have at the Royers Round Top Café, be sure to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream when serving a slice of this tasty pie.

How To Store Texas Trash Pie

Even though we don't expect many leftovers from this dessert, this pie can be stored covered at room temperature for up to 3 days, refrigerated for up to a week, and frozen for up to one month.

Editorial contributions by Nik Pugmire.