N.E.G.S.

Never Eat the Green Stuff.

(This is not my pie!) My mom last night said that she’s never even seen green key lime pie—but I have! And apparently, you should never eat it (say the locals in Key West). Yellow is the way to go. I wouldn’t even know how to make it green—food dye? But why ruin the natural color of freshly, hand-squeezed lime juice and thick, creamy, sweetened condensed milk!?

Everyone has been telling me that I need to start writing my own recipes. It’s true, I do need to if I want to open my own bakery; however, I first need to have a strong background of a variety of different desserts and have experience creating these treats first before I can even begin to concoct my own recipes. I need to get a good sense of what works and what doesn’t work in recipes that I choose and then switch it up—ingredients that is—to make them my OWN. I will get there in time :)

Back to the delicious key lime pie I made yesterday.

Homemade crust-check

Homemade filling with freshly squeezed limes-check

Homemade meringue-check

Nothing can get better than this!

Crust is extremely easy to make if you can find already-crushed graham crackers in your local grocery store. I stole the last box of Keebler's yesterday at Walmart! Well not stole, but you know what I mean. I have crushed my own grahams in the past when I made the lemon tart but it just doesn’t get as super-fine as it needs to be for a nice, smooth crust. Once you get the already-crushed grahams, you mix them with butter and sugar and BAM! You have a sweet crust that is baked for about 7 minutes and can be used for various pies and cheesecakes! Substitute chocolate or cinnamon grahams and you have a different flavor to switch up to now and then depending on what kind of dessert you’re making.

Next came the pie filling. Super easy—3 egg yolks, a can of sweetened condensed milk, lime zest, freshly squeezed lime juice from about 5 limes, and some heavy cream. The hardest part was squeezing the limes. It took about 4.5-5 limes to get just a tad over ½ cup (I like it a little sourer) and my hand sure did hurt after this! To zest the lime, I used a hand, cheese grater (click there if you don't know what I am talking about). You simply pour the mixture over the crust and bake for 30 minutes or until stiff.

While the pie is baking, I whipped up the meringue so that it was ready to be spooned on top of the hot pie filling. I was a little worried about the meringue because it was my first time making it and I didn’t want it to spread out or flatten in any way—I didn’t know what to expect.

The meringue is a piece of cake--4 egg whites (3 were left over from the pie filling and I used 1 ounce of egg white from the carton that was leftover from my angel food cake), white sugar, corn starch, and a pinch of salt. Everything is whipped up until the egg whites form soft peaks and then spooned over top of the hot pie filling. Since I don’t have a torch, I put the whole sucker back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Beginning of the dollop-ing!

What I will use next time: Actual Key Limes! I didn’t particularly look for these while I was in Walmart and instead, just spotted regular limes and went with those. Apparently key limes are little smaller and more sour. Perfect for key lime pie!

Other than that, everything turned out FANTASTIC! The pie had just the right amount of tartness, the meringue was the perfect consistency and didn’t flatten in any way, and the crust wasn’t too thick or thin. The recipe that I used suggested that you serve the pie warm or at room temp; however, this did not work for me. I’ve always had key lime pie cold first off, and second off, the pie fell apart when I tried to cut it when it was warm. Later on, I cut it after it had been refrigerated and it was perfect.

YUMMO! (As my mother would say)