Key Lime Pie is the quintessential summer dessert, but it poses several problems for a first-time baker. First of all, key limes, which are smaller and sweeter than standard limes are more expensive and harder to find than conventional limes. Also, the filling is typically made of a custard of condensed milk and egg, and it can be a little tricky to get it to the right consistency.
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| Limes are harvested year round in some tropical areas, but in other places, trees only produce fruit in the summer. Limes are yellow when fully ripe, but are better when harvested while they are still green. |
This recipe, adapted from Gourmet's 1998 version avoids some of these issues, but may need a little bit of tweaking to reach pie perfection. It is made with a pie shell instead of the traditional graham cracker crust and the filling is thickened with cream cheese instead of eggs, which means you don't have to bake it to get the filling to set up. It also uses standard limes instead of key limes, which saves you the expense and headache of using key limes. Unfortunately, although this is a beautiful pie and the filling was very good, I missed the graham cracker taste and felt like this may be missing something. If you do chose to make it with the pie shell, I would recommend adding something else, like fresh ginger or fruit.
Key Lime Pie
Crust:
-2 1/2 c flour
-1 c unsalted butter
-1 tsp salt
-1 Tb sugar
-1/4 to 1/2 c ice water
-Plastic wrap
OR
Premade graham cracker crust
For filling
-1 pound cream cheese, softened
-3/4 cup fresh lime juice
-a 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
-1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lime zest
For topping
-1 cup crème fraîche (may be made with 1 c heavy cream and 1 Tb of sour cream, left to stand overnight)
-1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
-For the crust, mix dry ingredients, then use a pastry cutter or food processor to blend until it resembles coarse meal. Try not to overwork the dough, this can make it tough. add water until the dough just comes together in your fingertips. Press together and divide in half, wrapping each in plastic wrap. You will only need 1/2 of the dough for this pie. Chill for at least 1 hour.
-For the filling, mix all ingredients well. Make sure the cream cheese is well blended, or you may end up with plain cream cheese chunks in your pie.
-Roll out pie dough, place in 9 inch pie pan, smooth and cut off excess dough. Crimp edges and prick the bottom of the crust with a fork. Fill with pie weights or (as I did) cover the crust with foil and fill the foil with uncooked rice. This will keep the shell from puffing up and infringing on the space for the filling. Chill the shell for at least 30 minutes
-Bake crust at 350 F for 20 minutes, then remove foil and rice and cook until the crust is golden brown, ~10-15 more minutes.
-allow crust to cool completely and then chill for 1 hour.
-fill the crust with cream cheese mixture and chill while making the topping.
-whip crème fraîche until it forms soft peaks, continue to whip and add powdered sugar slowly. Spread mixture carefully over the filling, allow to chill for at least one hour or up to one day, loosely covered.
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