So happy to return today for the Secret Recipe Club‘s Group C reveal day! Life has been keeping me pretty busy, but I’ll talk about life another day.
Today I need to tell you about this Key Lime Pie. This amazing key Lime Pie. I was assigned to Mother Thyme‘s blog this month, which is a new-to-me blog, and I was really excited to peruse it. Jennifer’s blog is attractive, organized (yay for a recipe index!), and her photos are beautiful, so it was a real treat! Not to mention that most of the recipes are her own creations! I truly admire bloggers like Jennifer who mostly post their original creations, since I find that difficult, personally. My creations are very rarely blog-worthy. LOL!
So when I ran across this key lime pie recipe, I was excited because Dennis loves Key Lime Pie and I’ve been wanting to make him one for a long time, but I was also very skeptical. The main ingredients are sweetened condensed milk and lime juice. And it only calls for for 9 minutes of baking. I thought it was mis-typed, and eggs and extra baking time were missing. I mean, how can two very liquid hardly-baked ingredients make a thick, creamy filling?
So I searched online recipes and found some similar ones that didn’t even require any baking. What? Really? Wouldn’t this make soup pie?
I decided to give it a go, and I’m so glad I had faith in Mother Thyme! This is kitchen science, folks, and utterly fascinating. Apparently when the acidic lime juice is combined with the condensed milk, it thickens it, because as soon as I whisked it in, the two liquids turned into a thick, pudding-like filling. Amazing! After just two hours, it was ready to slice, and I didn’t even bake it at all!
The taste? Just as amazing as the magical thickness. Perfect balance of sweet and tart! I’m just so excited by this pie, you guys, you don’t even know. It’s so easy to make, so magical, and so delicious. You could even say…it’s magically delicious. :)
I made it a little festive by adding some food coloring to intensify the green (it’s really more ivory without the food coloring), and added shamrock sprinkles for a St. Patrick’s Day look. This would make a nice change for a St. Patty’s day dessert since most of them feature booze and/or mint. But even if you don’t try it for a holiday (would also be cool for Christmas with red sprinkes!), it’s great any time of year–especially spring and summer. Dig in!
Key Lime Pie
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture
Crust
1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
5 tablespoons melted butter
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
Filling
3 (14.5 oz) cans sweetened condensed milk
2 drops green food coloring + 1 drop yellow (optional)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup key lime juice (or regular lime juice)
2 tablespoons freshly grated lime zest (from about 2 large limes)
Garnish
Whipped cream or Cool Whip
Extra lime zest or sprinkles
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix crumbled graham crackers, butter and sugar in a 9” spring form pan or a deep dish pie plate and firmly press evenly over bottom and sides of pan. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool before adding filling.
Meanwhile, combine sweetened condensed milk and food coloring if desired, mixing until totally blended. Add the sour cream, lime juice and lime zest and whisk until thickened and completely incorporated. Pour mixture in to cooled crust and refrigerate 2 hours or until ready to serve.
If desired, just before serving, pipe whipped cream around the edge of the pie (I used Wilton tip 1M) and garnish with some extra lime zest or festive sprinkles of your choice. Or you can just serve with a dollop of whipped cream on top. Refrigerate leftovers.
Veronica’s note: never mind my shallow pie dish, do not use a regular pie dish or you will have too much crust and filling, as I did (I made a second small dish of pie with my leftovers). Do as I say, not as I do. ;)
Recipe source: Mother Thyme
You can see all the other Group C SRC recipes by clicking the linky man below:
Veronica's Cornucopia 
Do you know V, I’ve never had key lime pie in my life? And I love tart stuff too! Looks delicious and I love the shamrock sprinkles. Happy Monday! I am assuming your off today because isn’t the post office closed today? I had hardly any traffic driving into work today!
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Yes us federal employees get today off…but I volunteered! So I’m going in today-boo hoo. ;)
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ok, I MUST make this. Richard and I LOVE Key Lime Pie but have only found one we really like when we leave town and go to a California Pizza restaurant. And that fact that it is easy and no back makes it even better. WOOHOO! Thanks for this!
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LOL, I love your excitement, Kathy! To make it even easier, you could buy a premade graham cracker crust and halve the filling ingredients.
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this key lime pie looks great!!
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I love the shamrock sprinkles! Added it to my St. Patty’s Day Pinterest board. Thanks Veronica!
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So excited your choose this recipe for SRC. It is one of my first recipe I posted on MT but it one of my favorites. I love how festive you made it for St. Patrick’s Day. Thanks for sharing and thanks for the sweet things you said about me at my blog. :)
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I’m glad I picked a favorite of yours!
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This looks beautiful!
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Yummy! Looks delicious!
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That looks SO professional my friend, the colour is so perfect :)
I want pie big time!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
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This look absolutely georgeous Veronica and yumm! Lovely recipe! really beauty!
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So pretty! I love the perfect swirls of whipped cream around the edge and the cute little shamrocks. What a great new idea for a St. Patrick’s Day dessert!
Acid plus dairy = cheese, which is why the pie sets up without baking. How cool is that?
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Spanx u for the additional kitchen science info! I don’t know anything about cheese so I wasn’t aware that acid plus milk equals cheese. That is the sauce.
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mmmmmmmmm my absolute fave!
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When you mentioned that lime juice and the sweetened condensed milk turn into thick pudding like consistency I remembered when I was young and at my dad’s cabin and we were trying every alcohol combination in the world and lime juice and bailys irish cream turned in to like chunks of stuff that was not good at all. Not that it has anything whatsoever to do with your awesome pie! This look amazing! I know how much you LOVE baking science!! :-)
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This pie looks delicious! I love the vibrant green color and I bet it’s just full of flavor. Great SRC choice!
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Seriously? Your recipes are always blogworthy! But this pie, this pie, this pie. Sounds and looks delicious. What a great dessert for the upcoming St. Pat’s Day!
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I don’t blog the unworthy ones (any more). lol
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As much as I love key lime pie, I’ve never made it before! That has to change!
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Next to clicking on the link that I knew was my recipe, this was the very next one, you know how I love the citrus. The sprinkles add just the perfect touch! So now, I just need to add some tequila to it…perfect cinco de mayo pie!
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Key lime pie has to be one of the best flavors on Earth :) This looks totally delicious!
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Hoorays for days off AND this beautiful silky pie! This instantly transports me back to warmer days and makes me very happy =)
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Such a pretty pie! I love Key Lime, amazing flavour and it reminds me of being in Key West :P
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It looks delicious, and so pretty! :)
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Yum, an interesting idea. I’ve been meaning to tell you those almond fudge cookies were TO DIE FOR. My whole family loved them, thanks so much!
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Oh I’m so glad to hear that! You’re welcome!
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Oh thanks! This recipe looks wonderful. Pinned!
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Just in time for St Patty’s Day! I love me some key lime pie and this one looks divine.
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Looks delicious! Great SRC choice!
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Oh, my gosh…what a spectacular pie!!! It looks like you pulled it out of the case from the finest bakery! One of my favorites!!!!
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Your pie is beautiful with those perfect swirls around the edge. I would have never guessed those were the ingredients for the filling. The magic of science!
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Love your photos! Love me some key lime pie too. Mother Thyme’s blog is great, I’m a follower. I admire those bloggers who come up with their own recipes too cuz I sure can’t lol! I love that you made it perfect for St. Patrick’s day with the extra green food coloring and sprinkles. Pinning to my St. Patty’s Day board :)
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This looks beautiful and delicious, Veronica!
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This looks fantastic! My bf loves key lime pie, and I am planning to make this for him (OK, maybe for me too). One question–as I have never made this, I see that the Mother Thyme recipe calls for baking the filling, but this one doesn’t. Is either way acceptable?
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Yes, you can do it whichever way you please. I needed my pie to set up quickly so I didn’t want to heat it. There are other recipes like hers that do not require cooking, so I think of it along the same lines as a no-bake cheesecake. It’s totally safe to eat either way-it’s up to you.
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OK, update–I made this yesterday, and it was a huge hit! A great blend of tart and sweet.
Thank you Veronica for the response. Like you, I had some extra filling, so I baked one and chilled one, to see if there was any difference. They both tasted great, and the only thing I noticed was that the baked one set a bit firmer.
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Very cool, thank you so much for the helpful feedback!
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Your pie looks delicious! Pinning to save! =)
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Wauw it looks good! We will definitely try this recipe :-)
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Made this last night, a little disappointed, it didn’t ever really set (even now a full day later) and it was way too sweet for my family (maybe 1 can sweetened and 2 un?) They balked at the thought of adding any whipped cream to the top of it. But sadly not a winner with my folks.
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Aw Nancy I’m very sorry to hear that!
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