Key Lime Pie: The Easiest Pie Ever

I even kind of made it look pretty.

Ok. Unless you're a masochist who enjoys spending several years squeezing tiny little Key limes, this pie is definitely the easiest pie, and perhaps the easiest dessert, evah. Which is how we like to say "ever" whenever we're excited the Red Sox decided NOT to spend July and August dropping to the bottom of the AL East! But I digress.

There are FOUR ingredients, and one of them comes with the dish for baking:

-Key Lime Juice (You can spend 14 hours squeezing 'em, or it comes in a bottle)

-Sweetened Condensed Milk (you can own a cow, or it comes in a 14 oz. can)

-Egg yolks (comes in an...egg)

-A graham crust (you can make it, or it comes in a pie tin)

Note my awesome super old hand mixer.

If you want to make it look pretty like I did, then you also need:

-One blackberry

-Half a lime

See? So easy.

Important detail: You can't just use regular lime juice. Key limes are significantly tarter and possess a greater depth of flavor -- they almost taste more like a wicked tart berry than a citrus. They're very, very small, about an inch in diameter, and you can sometimes find them in small sacks in the produce section. Each lime contains only a scant amount of juice; however, my Grammy turned me on to Kellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice and I haven't looked back since. I've seen it sold everywhere form a standard supermarket to the neighborhood bodega, so look around.

Actually making the pie is simple. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using an electric beater (mine's from like 1976, if you can't tell) or a whisk, or a fork (but come on, spring for a whisk), beat together three egg yolks, the milk, and 1/2 cup of the juice. Then, pour it into the crust. BAM. That's it. If you don't know how to separate egg yolks from their whites, here's a helpful video explanation. 

 

Now if you want to be fancy (happy, Dawn and Rachel?), paint the exposed edges of the crust with the egg whites you've separated out -- it gives the crust a nice sheen and will help prevent it from breaking into crumbs when you try to cut the final product.

That's an el cheapo silicon brush, but fingers work too!

Throw the pie in for 15 minutes. Don't worry if it seems a tad loose when it comes out; it's set in about another ten minutes on the counter. Here's the pie BEFORE being topped with fruit:

Finally, if you're decorating, thinly slice a halved lime and arrange on the pie. I threw a blackberry into the center, because we had some and I like blackberries, which is the reasoning that guides many of my cooking decisions.

I think it's best to let it cool fully and to refrigerate the pie before serving, but that's your journey. The pie keeps reasonably well for maybe five or six days in the fridge.