Food Friday: Perfect Key Lime Pie

For this food Friday I want to share Zach’s special birthday dessert – key lime pie. This recipe is in no way healthy, but we only make it once a year, so I’m okay with it. I like this recipe because it doesn’t require baking ingredients that I don’t stock our house with anymore (like sugar, flour, and butter), it’s easy to make, and according to Zach it’s the most delicious key lime pie he’s ever had.

Perfect Key Lime Pie

Ingredients

·         Large store-bought graham cracker crust

·         1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

·         ½ cup key lime juice (I used about 20 key limes and juiced them with a garlic press)

·         1 8 oz pkg cool whip

·         4 egg whites

·         2-3 Tbsp sugar (since I don’t usually stock this in the house, I took sugar packets from Dunkin’ Donuts, those are 1 tsp each)

·         ½ tsp cornstarch

·         1 pinch salt

Instructions

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.       In a large bowl mix together lime juice and condensed milk. Fold in cool whip and mix gently until smooth. Pour mixture into pie crust.

3.       In a medium bowl, beat egg whites until peaks form (this works really well if you chill the bowl in the refrigerator beforehand). Beat in sugar, cornstarch, and salt.

4.       Pour egg mixture (meringue) over pie. Using the back of a spoon, form the meringue into small peaks. Bake pie for 20 minutes until meringue browns.

5.       Chill pie in fridge for 2 hours minimum (overnight is best).

I put my pie straight from the oven to the fridge so it has a lot of condensation on the top. You can avoid that by letting it cool completely on the counter before moving it to the fridge.

 The meringue blends into the filling making a super fluffy pie.

The following three pictures capture Zach's first taste of the pie on his birthday: