Hey, it's Baker Bettie and today we are going to make a Key Lime Pie. Key Lime
Pie is one of my absolute favorite desserts. I think it is kind of the perfect combination of
tartness and creaminess and I love the contrast of the really crunchy graham cracker crust
with the silky custard filling and it's actually extremely easy to make. Key Lime Pie originated
in the Florida Keys around the 1800s and these are the type of limes that were available there
at the time. These are key limes and you might notice it's very very small in contrast
to a Persian lime which is the typical lime you would find in your grocery store. You can see
that contrast in size, they're super tiny they're also a lot more difficult to find so if you cannot
find key limes that's okay just use regular Persian limes, but definitely use fresh lime
juice we don't want any of that bottled stuff. So key lime pie has a simple cookie crumb crust,
typically a graham cracker crust, but you can use any kind of crunchy cookie you have.
If you don't have graham crackers where you are something like a digestive biscuit is good or you
could even use something like a vanilla wafer, any kind of crumbly cookie is going to work.
Now we need 200 grams of cookies- this is a reason why I love using a scale because
we're going to need about 2 cups of cookie crumbs which is kind of hard to give a volume
measurement from the start of the cookie for, so I'm going to weigh out 200 grams
which for reference is exactly 13 graham crackers, if you're using graham crackers.
So we are going to pulse our graham crackers in a food processor. If you don't have a food processor
or if you don't want to get a food processor out you can actually just put them into a ziploc bag
and use a rolling pin to kind of beat them up and roll the rolling pin over the top of it
we just need to get them pretty broken up but you don't want super super fine cookie crumbs,
you want kind of a coarse texture. I'll show you what the texture is,
so I'm just going to pulse it in the food processor, I'm not going to leave it running.
Okay that is a great texture, that took me about 12 pulses in the food processor. So you can see
the crumbs are, there's a lot of like sort of fine crumbs but I also have some of these bigger
pieces. I really like that, that's going to give us a lot of crunch and texture with our crust.
So now we just need two more ingredients for our crust-
we need about 50 grams of granulated sugar which is a fourth of a cup,
and then we need melted butter, this is 113 grams or one stick,
and we're just going to mix that together. We really want to make sure that all of
those cookie crumbs are really well moistened and once you can tell all
of the butter is coating the cookie crumbs we can go ahead and put it in our pie plate.
So I have a 9-inch deep dish pie plate and I really like to use glass pie plates but metal or
ceramic is fine as well, and we're just going to transfer all of these crumbs into the pie plate,
and this is a pretty thick crust, i like a substantial amount of crust for my key lime pie
because the filling is going to be so tart it really helps balance. So one of my favorite
tools to use to get the cookie crumb crust distributed in a pie plate is a measuring cup,
preferably a metal one, and what you're going to do is just kind of use this to scoot the crumbs
around and i'm not really pressing down yet I'm just trying to get them evenly distributed first
and because there's so much fat in the cookie crumbs they can kind of stick to your hands so
the metal just helps you get them distributed without it getting stuck to your hands.
So now that you have the crumbs evenly distributed you can go ahead and go in and press them down.
You don't want to do this super super firmly because it's going to be very difficult to cut
and get out of the pie plate if you do. I just want to make sure that they are holding together
and that it's evenly distributed in the bottom and up the sides and that's it for the crust. We're
just going to bake it at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes to crisp it up a little bit.
So the filling for key lime pie is even easier than the crust. It's just three ingredients. We
need of course our lime juice and some sweetened condensed milk, now make sure when you purchase
this you get the sweetened condensed milk and not evaporated milk, the cans look very similar
and I've made the mistake before, and then we need some egg yolks to help bind everything together.
I also like to get a little bit of lime zest in my filling. I just think that helps really
add that pop of lime flavor. That's completely optional, if you don't want a super super tart
key lime pie you might want to leave that out. I'm going to add about two tablespoons.
Okay and now I'm going to juice my limes. If you can find the key limes
I would highly suggest you get them, it takes a little longer to juice because they are so tiny
but the flavor is really really nice. It's a little different than a regular
lime, the way I describe it is just very clean, I don't know how else to describe it,
but they're worth it, and we need one cup of lime juice
which is 240 milliliters and again the Persian limes are fine if you cannot find the key limes.
So once we have a full cup of lime juice we need to get our egg yolks. The egg yolks are
what contains all of the gelling ability of the egg, whites are what makes things rise and so
we don't want any rising from our filling, we just want that binding power of the egg.
And I find using your hands is honestly the best way to separate eggs. I know it's a little bit
messy but using the back and forth with the shell really can break your yolk and if you're going to
save your egg whites you don't want any yolk in them. And you can save these egg whites
to make meringue if you really like a meringue topping on your pie, that would be delicious,
I personally like whipped cream, but you definitely could or you can make macarons. There's
tons of uses for your egg whites. So we've got our egg yolks, we'll go ahead and add that one cup
of lime juice that we worked so hard for, I'm going to add the zest in, and then all we need
is the sweetened condensed milk. You need two- 14 ounce cans of sweetened condensed milk
and if you do not have this on hand or you cannot find it I actually just recently published a
recipe for a homemade version, it's super easy to make, it's just milk and sugar and a little
bit of patience. I'll go ahead and link that down in the description box in case you need it.
And we just want to whisk this together to make sure all of those egg yolks are completely broken
up and well incorporated and that is it for our filling, it's so quick and easy to make,
the hardest part is juicing the limes. So our crust is finished being baked
and you do not need to wait for this to cool to pour your filling in, you can go
right into it. Now there's a bit of a controversy about whether or not a key lime pie filling is
baked or not. I personally like to bake it because I find that it sets up a little nicer if you do,
but a lot of key lime pie traditionalists leave it unbaked and the acidity from the lime really
helps the egg yolks to firm up, but if you want it to set a little more we're gonna bake it
just for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees. So once your key lime pie comes out of the oven
you do need to let it chill before you cut into it, and before you decorate it.
So I like to let it sit at room temperature for about one hour and then I go into the
refrigerator for about six hours, that will make sure it's completely solidified before you cut
into it. If you go into the refrigerator too quickly when it comes out of the oven
it can crack on top and we want that really beautiful smooth finish. Now you can just leave
this as is and serve it like this with maybe some whipped cream on the side. but I like to decorate
it a little bit. I'm just going to do some really simple piping of whipped cream on top just to make
it really pretty, you definitely don't have to do anything this fancy, it also looks amazing
if you just pile some whipped cream on top and as an optional step I like to
do some lime zest right over the top, it just gives it kind of that pretty pop of green and then
if you want to get extra fancy you can cut some little lime wedges and then you just cut one side
halfway through and then you can kind of twist it and set it down right in the whipped cream.
So that's it that is our key lime pie, it is so easy to make and this is
one of my favorite desserts. It's super super tart but then the contrast of the
creaminess of the filling and the crunchiness of the crust, it's just the perfect dessert.
I hope you really liked this video if you did make sure you give it a like
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