Cooking From Scratch: Key Lime Pie Part IV

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, the dramatic conclusion of my Key Lime Pie from scratch project. Hopefully you haven't fallen asleep and stopped following the process long ago.

I decided to use Nigella Lawson's recipe for the filling, as I have been successful with it in the past.

You will need:

5 Eggs

1/2 Cup plus 2 tbs Key Lime Juice

14oz of Condensed Milk

Separate your eggs so that you have five egg yolks in one bowl, and three egg whites in a second bowl (I saved the remaining two egg whites for later use in an omelet). Two of the eggs I used were from a friend who raises his own chickens. You can easily see the color difference in the photograph-the yolks were a deep orange.

Beat the egg yolks until thick.

Add the condensed milk (I used the condensed milk that I made from scratch in part I of this recipe)

Add the key lime juice.

In your second bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks, then gently fold them into the egg mixture in the first bowl.

Pour into the crust (see part III of this recipe) and bake at 325 degrees for 25min or until the filling is firm.

Behold, the finished product at long last! The farm raised eggs that I used gave the pie a very bright yellow color. Im happy to say that it was absolutely delicious; the perfect balance of tart, sweet, and bitter, and the crumbly, buttery crust nicely set off the creamy citrus filling. My dinner guests devoured almost the entire pie in one sitting...it wasn't pretty, Im not even sure what happened. One minute I was cutting the pie, and the next we were all slumped over in our chairs with happy yellow grins on our faces. Seems strange to put so much work into something that can disappear forever in just a moment. Its rather Buddhist actually....so uh yeah, eat your dessert, it will make you more spiritual

Cooking from Scratch: Key Lime Pie Part III

This has been a crazy week so I have been a bit behind in posting the remainder of the Key Lime Pie recipe, but here it is, part III- The Crust!

Most of the recipes I came across seemed to indicate that making graham cracker crust 'from scratch' required little more than crushing up some Nabisco Graham Crackers and mixing them with butter. Read the ingredient list on the back of the box, and you know instantly that this method couldn't take you further away from basic ingredients. Thus, I was delighted to come across a recipe on Mike's Table, that basically builds the crust from the ground up by producing a graham cracker dough.

http://mikes-table.themulligans.org/2008/06/18/graham-cracker-pie-crust/

You will need:

2 Sticks of butter (softened at room temp for about an hour)

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Cane Sugar

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 Tsp Salt

Mike also suggests adding a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, but since I would be using this crust for a citrus pie, I thought the flavor of the spice might clash and I left it out.

In a large bowl, mix the two flours and the salt

In another bowl, cream the butter with the two sugars. Once the ingredients are well mixed, stir in the honey. You can do this with an electric mixer, but I found it to be just as easy to use a spoon.

Mix 1/2 of the dry mixture into the butter/sugar and once that is fully incorporated, mix in the second 1/2. This will come together into a soft but slightly crumbly dough (just like your average cookie dough)

Form the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic, and let it rest in the fridge for about an hour.

Mike's table describes an ingenious method of rolling out the dough and transporting it to the pie plate without it crumbling, but I was lazy and simply rolled it out, then pressed pieces of it into the pie plate. The result wasn't pretty or even, but I figured it wouldn't matter much in the end. Next time I think I'll try it Mike's way though, it seems more dignified.

This recipe makes enough dough for two pies so I used 1/2 for the pie plate and cut the other half into squares to make actual graham crackers.

Whether you are baking a crust or crackers, make sure you prick both all over with a fork, so that the steam from the butter doesn't make the dough buckle and crack. Bake at 325 for about 18min. I put the pie plate and cookie sheet with the crackers on it side by side in the oven and both turned out great.

No, this is not the graham cracker that you grew up with. It is more of a whole-wheat shortbread. Very crunchy, very buttery, and the honey gives it an extraordinary flavor. Its a lot of work but I cant imagine going back to those dried out slabs of cardboard at the grocery store after this. I wonder what smores would be like made with these? Maybe I'll have an answer for you on that this summer!

Cooking From Scratch: Key Lime Pie Part II

Key Lime Pie part II: The Limes

Most of the time, when people think of limes, they imagine those dark green fruits, roughly the size of a chicken egg, that you can find in the produce section of just about any grocery store in the country. These are called Persian limes, and if you have ever had a Key Lime pie made with the juice from one of these, Im sorry to tell you, it wasn't the real deal. Key Limes, also known as West Indian Limes or Tahitian Limes, are smaller, rounder, have thinner rinds, a stronger scent, and are yellow when ripe. You can see the difference in size and appearance in the photograph above. They are native to South East Asia, but long ago their cultivation spread to the United States, where they flourished in South Florida, particularly the Florida Keys.

Most recipes for Key Lime Pie call for about a 1/2 cup of juice and 12 limes will yield just over this amount. Warning, these little guys are not easy to find in the North East outside of a bottle. I am lucky enough to live near a store that specializes in exotic produce, otherwise this project would never have taken off.

Slice and juice the limes. This is obviously quite tedious work because the limes are so small. If you have an electric juicer, use it, or be ready for sore wrists and hands.

I felt terrible about throwing out all of the spent rinds, but couldn't decide what to do with them. Perhaps next time I will try candying the peels to use as a garnish on the finished pie. For now, I'll just have to be wasteful.

Ah precious liquid! Seems like such a small amount after all that work. I really wouldn't recommend obtaining your juice this way unless you are a glutton for punishment, or are intrigued by the novelty of it.

Stay tuned for part III: Making the crust and putting it all together.