A sweet, tangy, crumb-crusted restaurant favorite

By Frank Whitman

Key Lime Pie was everywhere. Billboards, storefronts and menus touted the sweet, tangy, crumb-crusted local favorite. Invited by Tony and Julie who had extra space in their resort villa, Marsha and I were experiencing the Florida Keys (and its pies) for the first time. 

It’s an exotic place.  Not really Florida proper, since it’s separated from the mainland by the Everglades, but not the Caribbean either. Not the South (no one in the Publix knew where to find the grits,) but well below the Mason-Dixon Line.  An exotic location with coral reefs, shallow waters in countless shades of aqua, blue and green and islands that you can drive to, the Keys are a place all their own. 

There is an abundance of local seafood: grouper, yellowtail, mahi mahi, hog, lobster, pink shrimp and conch.  Although fishing is a big business, it’s the flavor of Key Lime Pie that has spread beyond the keys, travelling up the Overseas Highway to the rest of America. 

On paper, Key Lime Pie is the simplest of desserts to make – just three ingredients and a store bought crust, and you’re in business – but there are many variations and sub specialties.  

Creative cooks have expanded the universe of KLP, adding flavors and enhancing presentation.  Some add zest or nuts to the crust or enhance the filling with shaved lime rind. Homemade crusts are included in more comprehensive recipes. 

When we got home, I couldn’t shake the yen for more of the sweet-tang of a KLP.  Thankfully, the Stop and Shop had everything I needed to scratch that itch. I used a recipe from kitschencat.com as a guide. It had good directions for the meringue, but I skipped the from-scratch crust. 

Nellie and Joe’s Famous Key West Lime Juice (top shelf in the juice section) is the place to start. There’s a reliable shorthand recipe on the back – three egg yolks, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and a 9 inch graham cracker crust.  Whip the yolks till frothy, stir in the milk and then add a half cup of juice. Simple right?

Survey some online recipes and you’ll find a diversity of opinion on some of the details and an expanded explanation of technique.  Everyone seems to agree on the measure of juice. Some suggest as many as five yolks. One used only two.  In the past, I’ve had some runny pies, so I went for four. The eggs supply structure and texture and the milk, creamy sweetness.  The flavor punch and trademark tang comes from the juice. 

Key limes are hard, small limes grown in the Caribbean.  They’re not very juicy. One recipe called for 20 or more lines to get the half cup of juice. But if you find a fruit source, use fresh squeezed.  

Before the egg-salmonella scare, key lime pies were not baked – just stir and chill. The acid in the lime juice coagulates the protein in the eggs (just like in a ceviche) to set the pie. Those pies had a very soft texture. Now, all recipes recommend some baking at 350° for 10 or 15 minutes.  The idea is to make the pies safe but not give them a baked texture.

Thrifty cooks early in the history of the KLP used the egg whites to make a meringue topping for the pie. Perceived to be tricky, you don’t see it much now. For same-day eating, the meringue isn’t that much trouble and it browns beautifully under the broiler.  But it doesn’t hold well over time. My meringue wept a little liquid by the next day. 

Whipped cream is the topping of choice these days, covering the pie or piped around the edge as decoration. Pies are usually garnished with Persian lime slices, since the Key limes are hard to find.

We stayed at the Tranquility Bay Resort on Marathon Key. Their very nice restaurant, The Butterfly Cafe, featured a fancy version of KLP.  The layer of lime was topped with an equal amount of white chocolate mousse and then a thin layer of whipped cream – all encased in a chocolate crumb crust and elaborately presented. Our group raved about it, although it was beyond any one person to eat an entire generous slice. Julie was particularly enthusiastic about the chocolate crust, and I don’t disagree. 

Restaurants like to put an individual stamp on their KLP, and I don’t blame them.  They want to stand out. But you can’t go wrong with the basic version: easy to make and delicious to eat. And it might just make you feel as though there’s a breeze tossed palm tree overhead.