Key lime pie

Name: Key lime pie
Cook time: 357 min
Total time: 357 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Estadounidense
Ingredients: 90 g Butter; 1 tablespoon Sugar; 7 u Lime; 4 u Egg Yolks; 200 g digestive biscuits; 2 tablespoons Icing Sugar; 400 g Condensed Milk; 250 ml Whipping Cream

Tarta de lima de Florida

Easy

Contains allergens

Leche

Incomplete allergen information: some ingredients have not been reviewed yet. Always check the labels before cooking.

Author: Equipo Cocinoa
Preparation time: 6 hr
Servings: 8

Summary

The pie of the Florida Keys: a crisp biscuit and butter base and a silky filling of condensed milk, egg yolks and lime juice, baked for a few minutes and served well chilled with whipped cream.

Ingredients

8 servings

Add to Bring!

90 g Butter (melted)
1 tablespoon Sugar (for the base)
7 u Lime (about 6 for 120 ml of juice and the zest of 2, plus 1 more to decorate)
4 u Egg Yolks
200 g digestive biscuits (or graham crackers)
2 tablespoons Icing Sugar
400 g Condensed Milk (one tin)
250 ml Whipping Cream (well chilled, at least 35% fat)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 175 °C, conventional heat. Crush the biscuits to fine crumbs, in a food processor or in a bag with a rolling pin, and mix with the sugar and melted butter until they look like wet sand.
10 min
Tip the crumbs into a 22 or 23 cm pie dish and press them down with the bottom of a glass to cover the base and sides in a firm, even layer. Bake the base until it smells of toasted biscuit and is slightly darker at the edges. Leave it to cool a little.
12 min
Meanwhile, finely grate the zest of 2 limes, green part only, and squeeze enough limes to give 120 ml of juice. Whisk the yolks with the zest for a couple of minutes until slightly paler.
8 min
Add the condensed milk and whisk until combined. Add the lime juice gradually, whisking all the time: you will notice the mixture thicken straight away as the acid acts on it.
2 min
Pour the filling over the base and bake until set at the edges but still with a slight wobble in the centre, like a jelly. Do not let it colour or crack.
15 min
Leave it to cool to room temperature on a wire rack, then chill it for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight, until cold and firm.
5 hr
Just before serving, whip the cold cream with the icing sugar to soft peaks. Spread it over the top with a spatula or pipe it with a piping bag, decorate with thin lime slices and cut the pie with a knife dipped in hot water.
10 min

Notes

It is Florida's official state pie and was born in the Keys in the late 19th century, when there was no fresh milk or refrigeration there and tinned condensed milk was a store-cupboard staple. The acid in the lime thickens the mixture of condensed milk and yolks on its own, and the earliest versions were not even baked; today it is baked for a few minutes so the yolks are not raw, which is the safer approach. Key limes (the same fruit as the Mexican lime) are small, round, full of pips and yellowish when ripe, with a more floral aroma and sharper acidity. Outside the United States they are hard to find, and ordinary supermarket Persian or Tahiti limes, larger and seedless, make an excellent pie that is just a little milder. The filling is naturally pale yellow: if it is bright green, it contains food colouring. Graham crackers are the original; digestive biscuits are the closest substitute. Typical mistakes are overbaking, which cracks the filling and makes it grainy, and cutting it before it is properly cold. It keeps for 3 days in the fridge, covered; without the cream it freezes for up to a month, and in Key West they even sell it frozen in slices on a stick.