Key lime pie from freshly squeezed juice

[joshlh]

I'll be driving through the Florida Keys in a few weeks, and figure this might be my best chance to taste a pie made from freshly squeezed key limes, aside from hunting up a source for them and making one myself. So far, my internet search for likely restaurants and pie merchants has yielded little more than unqualified "to die for" recommendations. In Fading Feast Raymond Sokolov reveals that Manny & Isa's Kitchen on Islamorada has a grove out back which supplies juice for its pies, and I've found more current corroborating info online. This place sounds like a winner, even if they do store it frozen between squeezing and baking. Does anybody else have any recommendations for pies traditional or new-fangled, as long as they're made from unconcentrated, preferably un- frozen or pasteurized, key lime juice?

Thanks,

Josh

[Susan in FL]

Hi, Josh. Wish I could say yes! I could recommend a recipe, though. I was hoping for the same thing about a year ago when I went to Key West for the first time. None of the pies or other Key Lime desserts I tasted were as good as the Key Lime pie I make... and I'm not a good baker. I hope you get some suggestions; I would be interested next time I'm in the Keys.

[joshlh]

Thanks for your reply -- check out chowhound's florida board for a few more posts on this topic. I ended up trying the pie at Manny & Isa's, Kermit's Key Lime Shoppe, and Blue Heaven. Manny & Isa's was by far the best (also had a nice fresh grouper sandwich; cuban sandwich not very good), and Blue Heaven the worst, made I think with Tahitian limes. Blue Heaven's did have the nicest graham cracker crust, though, while M&I's had a rather disappointing pastry crust.

[takomabaker]

I'm an 8th generation Floridian who grew up on gloppy, runny key lime pies made in pastry crusts made from limes from my grandmother's key lime tree. It's a tradition.

I still get limes from my grandmother's, and my parent's, key lime trees. They send them to me in boxes when they have a bumper crop, and I meticulously squeeze every last drop of juice out of each lime and freeze it in ice cube trays. I can't make key lime pies with bottled limes or persian limes. I don't care what anyone says, it's not the same.

This is my updated, ancestors rolling in their grave, version of key lime pie that I make for my yankee friends in Washington D.C. It's always a hit.

First, I make my pie in a graham cracker crust. It's not traditional, but I like it better. I have discovered the "secret" to making key lime that is not gloppy, but also not "cooked", is to have the key lime filling, the meringue, and the crust all ready at the same time. When you remove the crust from the oven after blind-baking at about 300 degrees (whether it is graham cracker or pastry) put the filling and meringue into the crust immediately and put it back in the oven right away for the meringue to brown on top. The heat from the hot crust firms up the filling just enough without actually cooking it to keep it from being gloppy. I also add a few extra egg yolks to the filling.

This is how I make the filling:

I separate 5 or 6 eggs and put the yolks into a bowl. I SLOWLY whisk in a can of sweetened, condensed millk, and then SLOWLY whisk in enough key lime to to balance the mixture of texture and flavor. (If you add either too quickly, the filling will turn to soup and you will end up with the traditional gloppy pie of my childhood memories.) Usually it's between 1/4 and a 1/3 of a cup of lime juice. The texture should be about the same as yogurt. And then, of course, make you meringue.

Pour the filling into the very hot crust and top with meringue, and put it back into the hot oven to brown the meringue. My mother browns the top of the meringue under her broiler in mere minutes, resulting in the gloppy pies of my youth because the quick browning process does not assist the filling in firming up. I brown the meringue in a 300 degree oven. And once, in my early days before I had a lot of baking experience and I tried this method with the oven turned too low, I actually turned the meringue into nutless divinity sitting on top of my pie. It was pretty dreadful.

I have also discovered that the process of freezing the juice must break down some enzyme in the key limes that causes the filling to firm up when I whisk it with the sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks. I use less eggs if I use unfrozen juice when I first receive my limes from my family.

[Richard Kilgore]

That's great, tacomabaker, thanks and welcome to eGullet. Please enter your recipe in the RecipeGullet archive -- it's really quite easy. You have a proces and tips that many will appreciate. Including me.