Key Lime Pie

Recipe from Joyce LaFray Young

Adapted by The New York Times

Key Lime Pie
David Malosh for The New York Times; Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
30 minutes, plus 3 hours' freezing
Rating
4(1,688)
Comments
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This recipe came to The Times in a 1991 magazine article by film critic David Edelstein about Florida culinary specialties like conch chowder, alligator, stone crabs and Key lime pie. Key limes are small, yellowish, seedy and wildly more tart than their ordinary Persian counterparts. Unfortunately, Key limes grow slowly, so many Florida farmers replaced their Key lime trees with Persian ones. You can buy bottled Key lime juice at most supermarkets, but you can also make this easy pie with regular limes, although it won't be quite as delightfully tart. —The New York Times

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Ingredients

Yield:One 9-inch pie
  • 4egg yolks
  • 114-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • ½cup Key lime juice (see note)
  • ½teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 19-inch graham cracker crust
  • Whipped cream
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat the oven to 325 degrees. With an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks on high speed until thick and light in color. Add the condensed milk and mix on low speed. Still on low speed, add half the lime juice, cream of tartar and then the remaining lime juice, mixing after each addition. Mix well until blended.

  2. Step 2

    Pour into pie crust and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the center is firm and dry to the touch. Freeze for at least 3 hours. Serve with whipped cream.

Tip
  • Key lime juice is a tricky one. You generally have to buy it bottled, even in the Keys (it's usually found in specialty markets). The pie is great with regular limes, but it's not as distinctively tart. (One possibility is to mix regular lime juice with a bit of lemon juice.)

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Ratings

4 out of 5
1,688 user ratings
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Comments

rayna

If you squeeze half lemon juice and half lime juice it will taste like authentic key lime pie. Key limes are more sour than regular limes, so this is the way to go! Got this hint from a Florida native. Trust me, it’s perfect!

Cynthia

Hello from Florida, where we live with two key lime trees....which were exuberantly bountiful this year! 1) No bottled lime juice is a substitute for fresh key lime juice. 2) I make this exact recipe in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish, with the graham crust flat on the bottom. When the "pie" has cooled, I cut the dessert into squares and put it in the freezer, covered. It is easy to remove a square or two or more for a personal snack, or to serve as a dessert.

Joyce S.

This is not enough filling for a 9 inch pie crust. There is nearly an inch of empty space at the top of my pie. Next time I will use an 8 inch crust!

Rebecca

I think it would have been helpful to name the recipe Frozen Key Lime Pie. I never heard of frozen KL pie. My bad, I didn’t read the recipe to the end, I admit. I will freeze it after it cools.

JR

Using a standard 9” glass pie dish (1.5” external height), I scaled the recipe up by 1.5x (6 yolks, 1.5 can condensed milk, 3/4 cup juice) and it perfectly filled the dish ( I used NYT graham cracker crust recipe). Baked 18 min at 350 at the advice of AI given the increased recipe and glass dish. Came out perfect.

Brad Cooney

You can use bottled key lime juice. Brad adds zest from 4 regular limes.

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Credits

Adapted from "Tropic Cooking," by Joyce LaFray Young, Ten Speed Press.

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