Key Lime Pie
- Total Time
- 30 minutes, plus 3 hours' freezing
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 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
Preparation
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
Private Notes
Comments
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!
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.
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!
I lived in Miami almost 15 years and had a key lime tree. I don’t recall we ever froze the pie, but following directions. In Key West you can buy a wedge of pie frozen on a stick and dipped in dark chocolate. Amazing! I made a half recipe of chocolate ganache and put it on the bottom of my pie, so we’ll see how it turns out.
does the graham cracker crust get backed before filling it?
I made this for Thanksgiving and it was delicious. Having a Kitchenaid mixer probably makes a big difference in the volume of the eggs -- it filled the pie crust leaving enough room for whipped cream. The pie froze really well, so you can definitely make it ahead of time. This was a little too sweet for me -- I'm going to make it again with 1/2 sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 evaporated milk.