Magic Key Lime Pie

Faced with a lot of milk at its best before date, I did what any sane person would do and made condensed milk: two batches, in fact. Read on to see how we used 8 litres of milk in just a few days.

Key lime pie is a wonderful sweet-tart dessert associated with those tiny, hard-to-squeeze citrus fruits. But I prefer using regular limes, as they’re so much easier to juice. And, according to Stella Parks, Florida might not have any claim to the dessert anyway. I used the recipe from her cookbook, which calls for making your own condensed milk and graham crackers!

The crackers are made with 100% whole wheat flour, sweetened with honey, and gently spiced with cinnamon. There’s quite a bit of baking soda to keep them crisp. Do keep an eye them, as I think 20 minutes at 350°F is too long. My batches got very dark at the edges.

Making the quick condensed milk was simple but requires constant stirring. Stella’s trick is to use heavy cream to prevent burning. It was delicious, as expected, and did not have that strong dairy flavour that the canned stuff often has. We also made a batch of the chai spiced version that my daughter and I enjoyed for a week, to make an easy chai latte.

But back to the pie: aside from making the condensed milk yourself, the custard is like any other key lime pie. We didn’t have four hours to chill it, so the first evening we served the pie, the slices were a bit runny. But the leftovers didn’t last long. I thought the flavour was delicious, but wanted more filling and less crust. Maybe I’ll use a slightly smaller dish next time, or make the crust a tad thinner. This is a very impressive dessert to make, if you like scratch baking.