Key Lime Pie

I want to apologize, in advance, for this recipe not being as photographically complete as I'd have liked, but I was at a family reunion and there was such great kitchen banter between all the other cooks, that I simply forgot to take photos of some of the steps.

That being said, with this recipe, I thought it would be a good time to introduce the idea that you can make many recipes despite not having all the correct equipment and the results will be the same as if you did.

So, I decided to pretend I didn't have any pie pans. Thus, I foraged around the kitchen and found a cake pan and a small square baking pan, then proceed with the recipe as normal.

The lesson in this is, don't ever stop yourself from making a recipe because you don't have the exact right equipment, just be a little creative with what you do have and forge ahead.

Note: It is important to realize that these recipes are merely guidelines to follow. They'll taste great as they are, but I encourage you to play with them and make the recipes your own.

Note: It is good practice to read the entire recipe, while paying particular attention to the "Notes", before you try to make the dish, as there are often subtleties that can be easily overlooked, which sometimes, can make all the difference in the world for the outcome. 

Makes 2 Large Pies or 3 pies in Standard Disposable Tin Pie Pans

Skill Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Prep time about 30 minutes.

Cook Time about 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 4 cans of sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 bottle of Nellie & Joe's Key West Lime Juice
• 1 bag of fresh Key Limes (Garnish)
• 2 Limes
• 2 dozen eggs (You may not need all of them)
• Sugar
• Cream of Tartar
• Graham Crackers or Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 1/2 pound butter

Tools Needed:

• Kitchen Aid or Hand Mixer
• Pie Pans
• Small Sauce pot
• Large metal bowl
• Large Plastic Bowl
• Rubber Spatula
• Small Spoon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In a bowl, make a 3 to 1 mixture of graham cracker crumbs and sugar, respectively.

Note: 3 cups graham to 1 cup sugar is about 1 large pie pan.

In this recipe, I took 1 box of graham crackers,  removed the individual packs of crackers, placed each in a doubled up Walmart bag and used a bottle of spaghetti sauce to pound them into crumbs. Then poured the graham crumbs through a colander to remove any large chunks.

Separate your eggs until you have exactly 500 milliliters of egg whites.

Note: Make sure that you do NOT GET ONE SINGLE DROP of egg yolk into the egg whites, as this will RUIN the egg whites for making the meringue. If you do get yolk in the whites, finish measuring out the 500 milliliters, to get your egg yolks for the custard, then toss the egg whites and begin again. You must have 500 milliliters of egg whites for the meringue. The yolks obtained this time are waste, unless you want to make another recipe that just calls for yoks, like Cème Brûlée (Recipe is coming soon!).

Note: Why 500 milliliters of egg whites you ask? It is because giving a number of eggs, like "seperate 16 eggs," is just plain stupid, because ALL eggs are slightly different in size, and I have seen as few as 10 eggs to make 500 milliliters and as many 18. So using 500 milliliters ensures you get the correct amount of egg every time, no matter the size of the eggs you use.


In a plastic bowl, mix the 4 cans of sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks. DO NOT ADD THE KEY LIME JUICE YET. Let mixture come to room temperature.


Note: A plastic bowl is used as we will be adding acid to the mixture and you don't want it reacting with a metal bowl, negatively affecting the flavor. 

In a small sauce pot, place your butter on low/medium heat to melt.

Note: You can leave the wrapper on the butter and remove when butter is melted. This is particularly useful when you have to melt many sticks/pounds of butter. I have found, if you are doing several pounds of butter, you can wait until the butter is completely melted and you can use a slotted spoon or a fryer scoop/skimmer to easily and quickly remove all the wrappers. 

Mix melted butter and the graham/sugar mixture until the mix will hold together when compressed, but does not look or feel oily. Evenly spread mixture in the pans, making crust about 1/2 inch thick. Bake for about 15 minutes.

Note: If the mixture is too oily, then when you bake them, the crust will sluff off the sides of your pan. If this happens, and you act quickly enough, you can use a spoon to push the sides back up before the crust begins to harden. 

In a Kitchen Aid bowl, add the 500 milliliters of egg whites, 2 1/4 cups sugar, and 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar. Let come to room temperature.

Note: You can use a hand mixer to whip the meringue, it just takes a lot longer.

Note: Let egg whites come to room temperature before making the meringue.

After about 15 minutes, your crusts should look like this. Let cool.

When crusts have cooled, you are ready to add lime juice to the egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk mixture. As you mix the Key Lime juice in, you will notice the custard thicken.

Note: Add about 3/4 of the bottle of Nellie & Joe's and add the juice of 2 fresh regular limes. 

Immediately pour the custard into the cooled pie crusts. 

Place pies in 350 degree oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes.

Note: Depending on your oven, this can vary wildly. So the best approach is, after 10 minutes, give the pies a jiggle. You want the pies to be mostly firm, with maybe the slightest jiggle left in the very center of the pie.

Note: If you see any signs of browning or dull hardened areas on the pie, you have over cooked it. The pies should be as bright and shiny when they are finished as they were before they were cooked.

While the pies are baking, turn the Kitchen Aid on high. The meringue will take about the same amount of time as the custards take to bake.

As the meringue is whipping, as it rises in the bowl, it is a good idea to move the whisk up and down to make sure the meringue is well mixed.

Note: With a Stand Mixer, you can tilt the motor back and forth to achieve this.

Note: There are 2 types of Kitchen Aid mixers: 

1. the Commercial Style mixer (I highly recommend this version), which has a lever that moves the bowl up and down 
2. the Stand Mixer (pictured), which has a hinge at the back, allowing the entire motor assembly to tilt out of the way, making The Stand Mixers far less versatile.

After the meringue becomes thick and shiny, stop the mixer and take a spoon and do a peak test. If the peak falls back on itself, continue mixing. 

Note: This is the trickiest part of the whole recipe as from this stage the meringue can quickly become over whipped and ruined, so begin peak testing often. 

When your meringue is perfect, it will be very shiny and very stiff. Dipping a spoon in and out will effortlessly produce beautiful peaks.

Note: The smaller the spoon, the more peaks you'll have and the prettier the pies will be.

Note: If the peaks are breaking, or are hard to tease out, the meringue is over whipped.



The pies and meringue should be ready about the same time. Immediately spread the meringue onto pies, creating a smooth dome shape. Starting in the middle of the pie, and radiating out in concentric circles, pull peaks with a small spoon.

Immediately place the pies back into the oven to brown the tips.

Note: You can turn the oven up to 400 degrees to get a more dramatic coloring on the tips.

Here is the recipe in standard pie pans, from last years reunion, with sliced Key Limes as garnish. 

Cool completely on countertop. Then place in a sealed pie container in the fridge overnight to cool.

Note: Moisture is deadly to meringue, as it will cause the sugar suspended in the meringue to turn to syrup and leak out. Since a refrigerator is very humid, you want to try and protect the pie from this as much as possible. They make pie covers specifically made for preserving meringued pies as long as possible. 

This brings me to cutting the pies.

1. Use a wet knife
2. Clean knife and dip in water between each cut.
3. Keep the knife as vertical as possible, as to minimize the contact of the blade and the meringue. 

The 1st piece is always the hardest to get out and therefore the easiest to ruin. This ugly, but tasty treat is your reward for all your hard work. 

The pies will keep about 2-3 days.

The Custards are very easy, the meringue is a little tricky, and making them pretty is the most difficult of all, but all it takes is practice.

Enjoy.