Happy Sunday! Today I made a delicious key lime pie to take to Sunday dinner for my sister. My sweet sisters have lived within 30-40 minutes for so long. We have been blessed enough to be able to do family dinners at least every other Sunday together since, well, forever. Now they are both moving and Cassie's last Sunday dinner will be tonight. I have three siblings, Mckenzie is the oldest, then Cassie, and D.J. lives in Idaho. I have been "closer" with one or the other at different times in my life. Cassie and I had to share a room for just way too long. My oldest sister, Mckenzie, was always pretty firm on wanting her own room and as the oldest sister she was practically entitled to it. It was never really an option to share a room with my brother- except once when we lived in a little apartment in Montana... It was a three bed apartment and it originally made sense to my parents to split the two available rooms by genders. 3 girls in one room with a bunk bed, 1 boy in the other. Mckenzie would not stand for it. She insisted on keeping her stuff in D.J.'s room, even though she would still sleep in the sister room. It was definitely a matter of principal that the third born child should absolutely NOT be in his own room while she had to slum it with the rest of us in a cramped bunk bed.
Cassie and I were always the obvious choice to room together. We shared a room (if not a bed) for almost the first 16 years of my life (there was a brief time in there when I had my own room in Brigham City. It was amazing). During that time, we experienced all things sisters experience. We fought, punched, kicked, (mostly me, sorry Cassie!) stayed up late talking, and borrowed make up and talked about boys. We had very different styles so we always had to "split" the room (she had one side to decorate, I had the other). I was so excited when my sister went to college. I was finally going to have my own room (mostly, except when she came back to visit or on breaks) but I really missed having someone to stay up late talking with those nights. We didn't get along all the time (maybe even most of the time) but that time together has made me realize that love really does grow better in small spaces.
So now she's leaving me again for an amazing home in Oklahoma with practically no mortgage, but I've got to remind her what she will be missing out on when she leaves to hopefully tempt her to make a trip out every now and then after she leaves. I decided on a key lime pie because it's summer and I'm feeling it. I never really made pies before the last few months because they seemed so challenging. The crust-ugh! The filling-ugh! Getting it all to set just right-UGH! Lucky for us however, we have the amazing power to research and get a handful of other people's tried and true tips as well as the priceless mistakes to learn from as well. This post will kind of condense everything I read and learned about when I set out to make this pie for the first time.
First, here's a little heads up to help you not waste your efforts- don't use a metal bowl for the filling. Key limes are extremely acidic and tart and it will react with the metals of the bowl and make it taste metallic. Also, it's not always possible to find key limes. You can diy a key lime juice if you can't find them in the stores. Since it's just a more tart version of a regular lime, you can mix part lemon to part lime to meet the half cup.
I used a great recipe from Favorite Family Recipes.
For the crust:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Brown sugar
2 cup crushed graham crackers
For the filling:
4 large egg yolks
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 lime (or 1/4 cup lime juice)
1/4 cup key lime juice
2 teaspoons lime zest
Whipped Cream
For the crust:
- melt the butter and combine the crumbs, butter and sugar.
-Then press into a 9" pie pan.
-Allow to chill in the fridge for one hour.
For the filling:
-Preheat oven to 350
-In a non metallic bowl, beat egg yolks until they become a light yellow. See pictures below for clarification.
-Slowly beat in the sweetened condensed milk
-Next mix in the lime juices and zest just until combined
-Slowly pour into the prepared pie shell
-Bake at 350 for 20 minutes *check pie by lightly touching the top, if it springs back it is done. if it ripples or jiggles too much put it back in for another 3-5 minutes.
-Chill in the fridge
-Top with whipped cream and garnish lime zest (I used a wilton open flower tip to pipe rosettes-link below)
Let me know if you try this recipe, or if you have any you would like me to try! Thanks for reading
