Summer Citrus Series: Key Lime Pie Observations

The first time that I had Key Lime Pie, at culinary school, my mind was blown. Weeks afterwards I found myself reminiscing about the perfect balance of key lime filling and whipped cream topping. Before this moment, I wasn’t really a fan of the dessert. All the times that I’d had it previously, the pie was either too sweet or the lime flavor tasted artificial.The memory of that pie would haunt me for about a year after culinary school. It was at this moment that I accidently stumbled upon the recipe for Joe’s Stone Crab Key Lime Pie in Saveur magazine. As soon as I read the recipe I was amazed at how straightforward it was to follow and how minimal the ingredients list was. Till this day, I haven’t found a key lime pie recipe that produces better results.

I couldn’t think of any way to improve upon JSC’s recipe. This realization caused me to wonder what else could be made with the same ingredients. The idea came to me in a flash at midnight. The key lime pie filling is a custard. Traditional ice cream is also made using a custard as its base. I used Martha Stewart’s vanilla custard ice cream base as a reference recipe. I noticed that if the ingredients in the key lime custard were doubled they would be almost identical to the ingredients in the reference recipe. This was a good jumping off point. After reading a variety of flavored ice cream recipes I knew that some changes would have to be made to the ratio of ingredients to make a successful product. Right off the bat almost every ice cream recipe has more heavy cream than milk. So instead of using 28 ounces of sweetened condensed milk I would increase the heavy cream. The one cup would be changed to two cups and the sweetened condensed milk would stay at 14 ounces. Since the milk is already sweetened I wouldn’t need to add any additional sweeteners to the base. This was partly influenced by my concern about making the custard too sweet but also by the amount of sugar in the reference recipe. I figured that if the dairy was increased then the zest and juices should also be raised to prevent the signature flavor from being lost. The decision of how much more to add to the base was centered around the number of limes that I had that on hand. The vanilla extract would be added off the heat after the base was cooked because the alcohol (flavor) would evaporate during cooking on the stovetop. Since all the ingredients for the pie filling are combined in one bowl before baking it seemed fitting to do the same with the ice cream base. It was straightforward from this point on. I cooked the custard to nappe (cooked until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and stay in place). I followed the reference recipe for the remainder of the steps. In contrast to the curd I reduced the ingredients for the graham cracker crust by half. It wouldn’t be necessary to make the full recipe because the final product wouldn’t be a pie. The only difference in the preparation of the crust was that I used a smaller sheet pan for baking. The total cooking time of 20 minutes was the same as the original recipe.

The flavor of the ice cream was very clean, tart and refreshing. The texture/consistency was between a sherbet and a commercial ice cream. After tasting the ice cream, I became curious to see what it would be like following the recipe for key lime pie to the letter. It was like having frozen key lime pie. The texture/consistency was thicker than the first batch but the flavor was the exactly same. I would gladly have both again. I was unsure of what the result would be the entire time while working on this ice cream. In fact, throughout the day the phrase, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, kept running through my mind. It wasn’t until it was completed and recognizable as key lime pie ice cream that I my anxiety disappeared. I know that I’m not the originator of key lime pie ice cream and that there are probably a multitude of variations for it. My goal wasn’t to be the first or the most innovative but to produce a variation of key lime pie that was as clear-cut and uncomplicated as traditional key lime pie.

Later Days

#Lime #Pie