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I can still remember the first time I tasted key lime pie. I was about twelve, and we were celebrating my dad’s birthday at my grandmother’s house. She made his favorite childhood dessert, a key lime pie. As soon as I had a bite of it, it became my favorite dessert too!
About a week later, I visited my grandmother’s house again. One of my favorite things to do with her is cook, so of course I requested that we make a key lime pie together. I thought since she made it look all fancy, that it would be complicated to make. But as it turns out, it was extremely easy, and simple to make!
Each of the layers only takes a few minutes to make, but there are some large chunks of down time so it’s a pretty stress free dessert. It has a delicious lime flavor and tastes like summer. The graham cracker, salt, and butter give the graham cracker crust a nice earthy tone that cuts the rich sweetness of the filing, and highlights the tart fragrant lime flavor.
The first thing you need to do when making this pie is prepare the crust. You will need crushed graham crackers, melted butter, melted coconut oil, sugar, and salt.
Preheat oven to 325°. Place the crushed graham crackers in a large bowl, add butter, coconut oil, sugar, and salt, and mix until all the graham cracker crumbs are moistened (mixture will resemble wet sand). It should clump together when squeezed in your hand.
You could leave the extra sugar out of the crust depending on the strength of your sweet tooth.
Transfer to a 9″ pie dish. Using your fingers and the underside of a flat measuring cup, press mixture evenly into bottom and up sides of dish. Bake crust, rotating once halfway through, until golden brown on top and crumbs are set, 12–15 minutes. Let cool.
While the crust is baking and cooling, whip up the pie filling. You will need egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, organic lime zest, organic lime juice, and salt.
Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat your egg yolks and condensed milk in a large bowl until it has paled a bit and almost doubled in volume. This should take about 5 minutes. Whisk in the 2 tsp. lime zest, lime juice, and the salt. The filling should be pale fluffy and thick.
Don’t skimp on the zest, because that’s where most of the flavor comes from.
Pour the filling into the cooled crust. Bake the pie until the filling no longer jiggles and has slightly puffed around the edges (this should take about 15–20 minutes). Let the pie cool completely.
Whip cream and powdered sugar in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. Gently whisk in yogurt and rum, if using.
Dollop onto cooled pie, and spread it around with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
Garnish with lime zest, and serve. I like to pair key lime pie with moscato, or pino Grigio.
How To Make the Best Key Lime Pie
Ingredients:
Crust
- 14 graham crackers (about 1½ sleeves)
- 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 4 tablespoons virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Filling And Assembly
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest, plus more for garnish
- ¾ cup fresh key lime (or regular lime) juice
- Pinch of kosher salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt
- 1 tablespoon dark rum (optional)
Directions:
Crust
- Preheat oven to 325°. Using your hands, crush graham crackers in a large bowl until coarsely ground (you could do this in a food processor if you’d like, just be sure not to process too finely; you want some texture in the larger pieces). Add butter, coconut oil, sugar, and salt and mix until well blended (mixture will resemble wet sand). Transfer to a 9″ pie dish. Using your fingers and the underside of a flat measuring cup, press mixture evenly into bottom and up sides of dish. Bake crust, rotating once halfway through, until golden brown on top and crumbs are set, 12–15 minutes. Let cool.
Filling And Assembly
- Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat egg yolks and condensed milk in a large bowl until paler and almost doubled in volume, about 5 minutes. Whisk in 2 tsp. lime zest, lime juice, and salt. Pour into cooled crust. Bake pie until filling no longer jiggles and has slightly puffed around the edges, 15–20 minutes. Let cool completely.
- Whip cream and powdered sugar in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. Gently whisk in yogurt and rum, if using. Dollop onto cooled pie, creating dramatic peaks and valleys with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. Garnish with lime zest.
Recipe notes:
- If you would like the filling to have a green color, add green food coloring when whisking the filling. Add one drop at a time until it is the desired shade.
- This can be made a few days ahead of the intended serving time.
What is your favorite childhood dessert?