I will confess - although I love to cook, I am not much of a baker. I have two stumbling blocks. First, I genuinely don't have a sweet tooth. Cookies, cakes, pies...these just don't tempt me. (Don't worry, I have my own weaknesses - friends and family know never to stand between me and a french fry). It's very rare that we have any kind of dessert in the house beyond popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, and frozen peanut M&Ms. Second, baking requires a level of attention to detail that I just flat out don't have.
Attorney Mom, on the other hand, IS a baker (as evidenced by her previously posted red velvet cupcake recipe). She's the one you always want to bring the dessert when you're having a dinner party. But her recent efforts to master key lime pie highlight exactly why it is that attention to detail matters...too funny! She guest posts again today, and let me be the first to tell you her key lime pie is (now) perfect.
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The Key Lime Pie Debacle
Earlier this summer, I was on maternity leave for my infant son. Wrested from my normal routine of office time each day (organized calm), and now faced with entertaining the aforementioned cutie, my toddler daughter and the two big dogs, plus daily mountains of laundry and lurking furballs, I decided to set a few goals just for me. One of these was to find and perfect a killer key lime pie recipe.
Now, this recipe is fool-proof and perfect, as long as you follow it! The first time I made it, it was for supper club. As the recipe looked easy, I waited until the day of to make it. As I pulled it from the oven, I noticed it hadn’t quite set in the middle, but the recipe promised me that it would set as it cooled. So I didn’t worry...until eight hours later, when I took it from the fridge and it still jiggled. Uh-oh. With an alternative dessert in hand, I took the key lime pie to supper club, praying that fresh whipped cream would hide the jiggle. Well, it would have, if the pie hadn’t run all over the plate! The very nice, very kind friends gamely ate the pie, but I owe them each a taste of the real thing. The culprit? The tricky can of evaporated milk that was masquerading as sweetened condensed milk in my pantry!
Some recipes call for using real limes, but I find this muddies the flavor. Also, I modified the recipe to include fresh nutmeg and brown sugar in the crust, which offers a nice counterpoint to the tart lime filling. Enjoy!
Crust:
9 graham crackers, crushed
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
5 tablespoons butter, melted
Filling:
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
½ cup fresh or bottled key lime juice
Topping:
¾ cup chilled heavy cream
Powdered sugar, quantity to taste
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients for crust together, then press into a 9-inch glass pie plate. Bake crust in middle of oven for 10 minutes and let cool in pie plate.
* Whisk milk and egg yolks together until well combined. Add juice and whisk until well combined. Pour filling into crust and bake in middle of oven for about 15 minutes. Cool pie completely and then chill, covered, at least 8 hours.
* Just before serving, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Add powdered sugar to taste.
