For quite some time now, someone I know professionally has been goading me to make him his favorite dessert, a key lime pie. Every time I happen to speak to him on the phone or see him in person, he starts out the conversion by asking when he will get his pie. Since this person was coming to our office for a meeting a few days ago, I decided it was finally time to deliver on his key lime pie.
Key lime pie is not in my regular rotation of baked goods (if you read this blog regularly, you know that I almost never make pies). I searched around for a recipe, and most were quite similar. I decided to go with a recipe from epicurious that was adapted from Town Hall Restaurant in San Francisco. I chose this recipe because it is basically a traditional key lime pie, but the crust is a bit distinctive due to the addition of almonds.
This recipe contains only a few ingredients and requires just a few minutes to prepare. You make the crust by grinding together graham crackers, sugar, and almonds in the food processor, and then adding melted butter. I should note that the recipe calls for seven graham crackers that are 5 inches by 2.5 inches. The Honey Maid graham crackers I bought were slightly smaller than this size. I don't know what the "standard size" of a graham cracker is -- but one thing that would be quite helpful for a recipe like this is a weight measure for the graham crackers, or a volume measure for the amount of crumbs you need. After all, one of these measurements should be provided in case you want to use homemade graham crackers. I threw in an extra graham cracker to compensate for the smaller size, and I weighed my eight crackers so that I would have a measurement for future reference (125 grams). The crust mixture was the perfect consistency. It was easy to press into the pan and I used a tart tamper to make the crust even and tight. The recipe instructs you to use a 9-inch pie plate, but there was definitely enough crust mixture to make a 10-inch pie.
The filling is simply a mixture of egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice (I used Nellie & Joe's bottled juice), and key lime zest (I used finely chopped zest from a persian lime). You bake the crust separately, cool it, pour in the filling, and bake the filled pie.
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After the pie was cooled and chilled overnight, I piped on some lightly sweetened whipped cream. I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to cut clean slices. The crust held together well, and the filling kept its shape. I thought that this pie was delicious. The crust is quite sweet, but the filling is quite tart -- together, they complement each other very nicely. The almonds in the crust do make the pie a bit more interesting. When Tom tasted the crust mixture alone, he said it tasted a lot like Golden Grahams cereal. I think the whipped cream is not at all necessary from a taste perspective -- the key lime flavor of the filling is so strong that it pretty much drowns out the whipped cream (although I didn't use that much whipped cream, so perhaps this would change if the ratios were different). But the whipped cream does make an attractive garnish, so I still think it's a good addition.
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All in all, this was a delicious dessert that was very easy to make. I would definitely recommend the recipe to anyone looking for a key lime fix, or just a delicious tart dessert!
Recipe: "Key Lime Pie," adapted from Town Hall Restaurant, on epicurious.com.
Previous Post: "Key Lime Sugar Cookies," August 15, 2008.
Key lime pie is not in my regular rotation of baked goods (if you read this blog regularly, you know that I almost never make pies). I searched around for a recipe, and most were quite similar. I decided to go with a recipe from epicurious that was adapted from Town Hall Restaurant in San Francisco. I chose this recipe because it is basically a traditional key lime pie, but the crust is a bit distinctive due to the addition of almonds.
This recipe contains only a few ingredients and requires just a few minutes to prepare. You make the crust by grinding together graham crackers, sugar, and almonds in the food processor, and then adding melted butter. I should note that the recipe calls for seven graham crackers that are 5 inches by 2.5 inches. The Honey Maid graham crackers I bought were slightly smaller than this size. I don't know what the "standard size" of a graham cracker is -- but one thing that would be quite helpful for a recipe like this is a weight measure for the graham crackers, or a volume measure for the amount of crumbs you need. After all, one of these measurements should be provided in case you want to use homemade graham crackers. I threw in an extra graham cracker to compensate for the smaller size, and I weighed my eight crackers so that I would have a measurement for future reference (125 grams). The crust mixture was the perfect consistency. It was easy to press into the pan and I used a tart tamper to make the crust even and tight. The recipe instructs you to use a 9-inch pie plate, but there was definitely enough crust mixture to make a 10-inch pie.
The filling is simply a mixture of egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice (I used Nellie & Joe's bottled juice), and key lime zest (I used finely chopped zest from a persian lime). You bake the crust separately, cool it, pour in the filling, and bake the filled pie.
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Recipe: "Key Lime Pie," adapted from Town Hall Restaurant, on epicurious.com.
Previous Post: "Key Lime Sugar Cookies," August 15, 2008.
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