While I’ve been visiting my parents, I’ve been making the occasional pie. The first night, I made a key lime pie and my youngest niece, who had never experienced one, fell in love with it. Not surprising. So, I made one the next week. It is one of the easiest pies to make, and people rave over it.
And then I spotted key limes at the grocery store.
I’d been using Key Lime juice and wondered how much of a difference using fresh limes would make. I knew it would be different, but would it be the sort of difference that only a foodie notices, or would it be apparent to everyone. So last night my dad and I juiced a pound of key limes. By hand.
At this point, I figured, if I were going to go to all that trouble, I should really make the pie from scratch and skip the sweetened condensed milk. I hit google to find out how people made key lime pie before sweetened condensed milk and… discovered that they didn’t. To my surprise, it’s been around since the 1850s. According to David L. Sloan, leading expert on key lime pies, “This pie was invented to use condensed milk. William Curry made his fortune in hardware. He provisioned ships. He brought the first condensed milk to the Keys not long after Gail Borden invented it in 1856.”
Huh. So! Without regret, I cracked open my sweetened condensed milk and got to work.
The first thing you notice about fresh key lime juice is that it has a floral character that the bottled stuff doesn’t have. Does that show up in the pie? Yes, it does. It is has fuller, more floral taste and even my dad noticed the difference. Next up? Lemon ice box pie, and I’ll be squeezing the lemons.
Recipe:
2 (14-ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk
1 cup key lime or regular lime juice
2 whole large eggsIn a bowl, whisk the condensed milk, lime juice, and eggs. Pour into graham cracker pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Chill for two or more hours.
When my wife makes this pie, she uses 1 can of condensed milk. Two cans doesn’t overflow your crust?
So according to Carl Sagan to make an apple pie from scratch you need to first invent the universe. But to make a key lime pie from scratch you need only build an international canning and food distribution infrastructure.
I make limeaid popsicles from scratch, and now that I’ve worked with real lime juice from limes I squeezed myself, I’ll never go back. I’m ruined for life on bottled lime juice.
When my folks lived in Arizona the grocery stores always had key limes. My dad took to making Key Lime Pie with fresh squeezed lime juice. It was wonderful.
I LOVE key lime pie. And it is so, so easy to make. It’s the perfect, oh my there are unexpected guests! baked good.
This is one of my husband’s favorite pies. I’ve been looking for a recipe. Thank you so much for this!
If you want fresh squeezed taste but can’t find real key limes, a fresh half lemon/ half standard lime mix works great.
Thanks for the tip.
I gave my brother a key lime tree for Christmas 2 years ago. Surprising how strong the fresh fruit are.
Oooh, can’t wait to try this recipe! The one I have uses sour cream and cream cheese instead of condensed milk; now I’m curious about the difference in taste and texture. Thanks!
An incredibly handy tip I found online: use a (non-garlicky) garlic press to squeeze the key limes. Makes things faster and much more pleasant!
This sounds incredible! I will have to try it… Everything gets better with fresh lime juice, we usually have at least two or three at home. Try guacamole with it, sooo tasty.
Now I’m hungry and the day has barely started on my side of the atlantic…