Simple Summer Recipe: 3 Ingredient Key Lime Pie

Nothing says “Summer” like a cool, sweet, and tangy key lime pie.  This pie is just the right amount of sweet and sour and tastes better than any restaurant Key Lime Pie I’ve ever had.  My husband made it first, and any time he would suggest making it again, I would tell him not to bother because it  tasted way too complicated.  He explained it was only three ingredients, and I was sold!  To make it even easier, I used a store-bought graham cracker pie crust, and ready-made whipped cream from the HEB Bakery section.  (If you’re going to take the whipped cream short cut, please-oh-please, get the HEB bakery whipped cream.  It tastes like homemade, and runs circles around cool-whip and reddi-whip.)  

 

Ingredients:

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk (14-oz)

4 egg yolks

10 – 12 Limes (4 tsp zest & 1/2 C Lime Juice)

Whisk egg yolks with 4 teaspoons of lime zest for about 2 minutes.  Mix in the sweetened condensed milk until smooth, and then mix in the lime juice.  Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes.  (It will thicken quite a bit in that time.)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Heat the graham cracker crust in the oven for about five minutes while the mixture is still thickening.  Pour the mixture into the warm pie crust and bake for 15 minutes, until the pie is firm but jiggles.  Cool for an hour, and then let it set in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Spread one container of HEB whipped cream over the top.  Yields 8 slices.

Tips:

– Use a grater that produces a fine zest, instead of long strips of zest.  They can be too chewy if not small enough.

– Don’t grate too far into the white membrane of the lime; it can give the pie a bitter taste.

– I used regular limes.  If you use actual key limes, you’ll probably need double due to their small size.

– Also, to get the lime juices flowing, firmly roll them on the counter before cutting and juicing.

Enjoy!