Key Lime Pie with Meringue

Usually summer is all about the peaches and blueberries and raspberries, but this summer I've been enchanted with limes. My love affair with limes goes back to my time as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan and the hours I spent at Drake's Sandwich Shop. Drake's opened in the 1920s, and walking through their doors was like stepping back in history. The front was an old-fashioned candy store. Off to one side was an ice cream parlor-style counter, staffed by surly Community High students. (It was part of the charm, really.) You'd place your order at the cash register, find one of the old wooden high-backed booths, and listen for your name to be called. Photos and newspaper clipping stretching back through the decades covered the walls. There was a little known 2nd story -- the "Martian Room" -- but it was lonely up there and I only went there when I couldn't sit downstairs. Customers were a mix of college students, townies, and punk rock kids.

But what does this have to do with limes?

Sometimes I'd order the sandwiches, all of which were named after Big 10 schools (back when the Big 10 only had 10 schools) and featured toasted white bread slices with deli meat and some combination of sandwich fixings. They were thin and charmingly old-fashioned. But most of the time I would order a toasted cinnamon roll and lime-ade with extra sugar. The counter girl would slice the cinnamon roll in half horizontally and grill each half (on the inside surface) until toasty. The lime juice was freshly squeezed and even with "extra sugar" (which they didn't always bother to add) was mouth-puckeringly sour.

It was a tradition. 

So this summer, I have been buying limes and squeezing my own mouth-puckeringly sour lime-ades. Juice of two limes, water, plus some sugar (a tablespoon or so? I haven't measured) all stirred together with an ice cube or two added to chill it down.

My lime enchantment did not stop with lime-ade. When a friend gifted us with a pile of key limes -- leftovers from a mojito party -- I knew it was time for me to make my first key lime pie. And I'm glad I did. They are remarkably easy. Opinion out there seems to be divided between "you must use real key limes" and "key limes and persian limes (the usual kind) make no difference in final pie flavor". I haven't done a side-by-side taste test, but I can say that there is a definite difference in how long it takes to get your freshly squeezed juice... (You'll need around a dozen key limes but only two or three regular limes.)

Key Lime Pie
How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

1 graham cracker pie crust (recipe in extended post)
4 eggs, separated
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 Cup freshly squeezed lime juice
pinch salt
pinch cream of tartar
1/4 Cup confectioners sugar

Prebake crust. Start filling while crust is in the oven. When the crust is done, leave the oven at 350 F and cool the crust slightly on a rack.

Beat the egg yolks just until combined. Beat in the condensed milk, then the lime juice a little at a time. The mixture will thicken. Place the filling into the warm crust and bake until the filling is just firm. 10 - 15 minutes. Remove and cool on a rack for about 10 minutes. Leave oven on.

Make the meringue. Beat the egg whites with salt and cream of tartar, until foamy. Add confectioners sugar a little bit at a time until the mixture is shiny and holds fairly stiff peaks. Be careful not to overbeat. (I slightly overbeat in the above photo. See how the points fell over?)

Cover pie with meringue, making sure the meringue covers the entire filling and makes contact with the crust edges. The stiff meringue will hold its shape, so you can decorate it how you like. To make lots of little peaks all over the pie, take a whisk and poke it lightly into the meringue and lift up. Bake until the meringue is lightly browned; 10 - 15 minutes. Cool on a rack and then refrigerate. Serve cool.

This pie is best eaten the same day. If it sits too long, the sugar will start sweating out of the meringue and form beads on the top. It will still taste great, but it's messier and looks funny.

Graham Cracker Crust
How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

6 Tbs unsalted butter
6 oz broken graham crackers (1 1/2 Cups ground)
3Tbs sugar
(1/8 tsp salt — my addition)

Gently melt the butter.

Combine sugar with graham crackers in a food processor and pulse to start breaking them down. Slowly add butter until well blended.

Press crumbs into a 9 inch pie pan.

To prebake: heat oven to 350 F. Bake the crust for 8 - 10 minutes, just until it begins to brown. Cool on a rack before filling. The crust will harden as it cools.

Kitchen Chick's Notes:
I use salted butter because I think a touch of salt enhances the crust. I estimated the amount I would use if I were to use unsalted butter.

The crust will shrink in the oven. I found that adding all the buttery ground graham crackers into the pan at once made it a bit difficult to smoothly shape them into a crust, so I add them in two batches. First I build the bottom, then I add more and press up the sides of the pan. I also overbuild the crust height so that it sticks up just a touch over the pan. This is a delicate operation, but when the crust shrinks it will be even with the pan. But don't feel it's necessary to do for the key lime pie. The filling will be slightly below pan level anyway.

Comments

[Meg]

Thanks for the blast from the past about Drakes! I worked in that area of Ann Arbor for years and loved to have lunch there. I'm going to go make myself some lime-ade right now!

[Nora]

Hello from Singapore
I love anything sourish and this looks so good, thanks for sharing...

Nora
http://www.kuihrecipes.com

[mandira]

The pie looks delicious and I loved reading about drake's too!

[piealamona]

The browned curls on the meringue are perfect! I love citrus desserts too.

[Brooklynguy]

I used to work at Drakes!!! that's right, for about a month of my freshman year at U of M, I worked behind the counter at Drakes. As I remember, the drinks were the fun part, but it was hard to make the various sandwiches. Some were toasted, others were not, pickes on this, who knows what on that...combined with the miniscule pay, I left for a better gig at accu-copy.

[Kitchen Chick]

Thanks, all.

Meg, glad to hear you enjoyed Drake's too. Drake's was a really special place. I wish Ann Arbor could have found a way to preserve it. I've actually avoided stepping into the store that took over Drake's location because I just don't want to "overwrite" my memories.

Brooklynguy: so how'd you decide to work for Drake's?

[Erin]

This looks so delicious and the recipe is completely unintimidating! For some reason I had it in my head that Key Lime Pie was complicated. How wrong I've been. I'm totally jealous that you were able to eat this.

[Devon]

Every six months or so, my best friend and I sigh over the demise of Drakes. That sets us off on a litany of lost places in Ann Arbor.

FYI, the Ann Arbor News published a recipe for Drake's limeade sometime this year. Paraphrasing here, but it was basically a shot of simple syrup, the juice of half a lime, ice and fill up with water.

To get the full effect, I think you have to drink it with a straw. It tasted pretty close to me, and I also tried it with orange juice to make orange aid.

Now I want a Stanford (olive salad, iceberg, cream cheese on white toast) and candy for lunch, just like in high school!

[danette]

Made your key lime pie recipe this weekend - one with the graham crust and another in a plain crust. Amazing results. The pie set beautifully and the meringue was gorgeous. I added bits of lime zest to the meringue and found that a pinch of cream of tartar was about 1/4+ teaspoon. I, my taste buds, and my ego (for all the complements I received) thank you for sharing this recipe.

[Kitchen Chick]

Danette - I'm so glad that you enjoyed the key lime pie. It's one of my favorite summer desserts. (Bittman's book is full of great recipes, so check it out. How to Cook Everything)

[Eugenia]

Sad about Drake's. I went to U of M for two years and would eat lunch there very frequently. I'd always get a limeade, but I'm not really a sandwich person, so I'd always get the bean soup. Yes, real, gen-u-wine Campbell's bean soup from the can. Ah, Drake's.

[Phillip Sorensen]

A pinch of nutmeg will enhance the lime flavor and give an aromatic zing tot his pie

[Cat]

I did everything EXACTLY how you explained to above and the pie turned out like complete shit. Thanks a bunch! I tried making this for my boyfriend for Valentine's Day but I can't feed him this. Have any of you who commented on this recipe actually tried making the pie? It seems simple enough, doesn't it? Sure, too bad it tastes inedible and looks like shit!

[Kitchen Chick]

Well, Cat, not knowing exactly what you did, I can't comment on why yours did not turn out well.

I have made this pie about 20 times since I posted this recipe, and I always get tons of raves. It always looks just like the above picture (which I happen to think doesn't look like shit) and tastes fantastic with tons of lime flavor, rich buttery graham crust, and sweet meringue on top. If you read all of the comments, you'd read that danette, above, reported great results, too.

[Jess]

I had issues with this pie too: the custard was way too sweet, the meringue wouldn't stiffen until I added granulated sugar, and when I let it cool after baking the meringue, the meringue separated from the custard beneath and left a clear, sticky liquid around it. Any idea what went wrong?