Archive for: key lime
Lemon bars are a fantastic treat when you have fresh lemons around. The best bars have lots of real lemon juice in them, after all, not just a few drops of juice or a bit of extract. The same holds true for lime bars, which are simply a variation on lemon bars that feature limes, rather than lemons. This lime bar recipe uses a lot of freshly squeezed lime juice and tempers its tartness with buttermilk, sugar, eggs and vanilla to make a delicious topping for these shortbread bars.
The base of these bars can be whipped in in just a few seconds in the food processor. In fact, the filling can also be whizzed together in just a few seconds in the food processor, so although you might invest a few minutes squeezing and zesting limes for these bars, they take almost no time to throw together. The shortbread base is made by cutting cold butter into a mixture of flour and sugar. This mixture is pressed into your pan and baked until just set, then it is topped with the lime mixture and baked a second time. The beauty of this technique is that you don’t need to wait for the crust to cool before that second baking – just pour the lime filling onto the hot crust and put it back in the oven!
The finished bars have a zesty, lime curd-like topping with a really fresh lime flavor, and a good balance between sweet and tart. The shortbread base is tender and buttery; you definitely get a nice hit of butter in every bite. Dust the tops of these bars with confectioners’ sugar before serving to dress them up a bit, or simply serve them plain. They are good both chilled and at room temperature.
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A classic key lime pie is made with sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks and lots of fresh key lime juice. In the original recipe, the pie is unbaked and relies on the acid from the lime juice to “cook” the egg yolks and thicken the pie. It works well, but because of concerns with having uncooked eggs in the pie, most key lime pies are baked in the oven or omit the eggs entirely in favor of using gelatin to firm up the pie. There are plenty of really great, slightly non-traditional key lime pies out there, but I find that few have the creaminess of that classic unbaked pie.
Until I made this one, which just might be my new favorite key lime pie recipe.
This is a non-traditional key lime pie in that it tastes like key lime pie, but there is not an egg in sight. This pie uses sweetened condensed milk for sweetness, cream cheese for creaminess and a little bit of gelatin to help the pie firm up while it chills in the refrigerator. It is incredibly light and creamy, and it has such a good lime flavor that you would never know that there was cream cheese in there. I also put a very thin layer of white chocolate between the filling and the graham cracker crust of this pie to ensure that the crust stayed crispy and flavorful, and didn’t get soggy from the filling.
I actually used regular lime juice in this pie and not key lime (because I have a lime tree), so feel free to use whatever limes are convenient to you as long as you use freshly squeezed lime juice. Don’t be tempted to go with bottled juice because not only do you need the lime zest to go into the filling, but you pie won’t have the same flavor as it will with fresh.
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I’m always up for making a new bar cookie recipe. As much as I like regular drop cookies, bar cookies usually take even less time to make because everything goes into one dish. I suppose that you have to wait longer for them to cool (unless you don’t mind the first piece or two crumbling apart) than with individual cookies, but when I’m pressed for time, it’s the prep that I want to cut down on and not the cooling. That said, these Lime and Coconut Crumble Bars are well worth making whether you want to bake something in a hurry or have a whole afternoon to spend in the kitchen.
These are very delicious, and even more so if you are a fan of key lime pie, since they really remind me of the flavors of that dessert. The bars have a crumbly, shortbread-like bottom layer and a crispy streusel topping. Both start with the same crumbly dough mixture that contains butter, brown sugar, oats and shredded coconut. The middle layer of these bars is made with sweetened condensed milk and fresh lime juice. It has the same tangy flavor and creamy texture as a key lime pie does! The oats and coconut toast up beautifully as these bars bake, so the finished dish is a great combination of flavors and textures.
These are good at room temperature, but if you’re making these during the spring or summer when it’s hot, they can actually be quite refreshing if you chill them before serving. Plus, they store a little better in the refrigerator when it’s very hot outside, although they do just fine when stored at a normal or cool room temperature.
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Aside from limeade, one of my favorite lime drinks is a mojito, a rum-based drink that mixes fresh lime juice with sugar and fresh mint. I like the way that the mint brightens up the flavor of the drink to make it even more refreshing than it would be with lime alone. The combination of mint and lime works well in other recipes, as well; lime is strong enough to balance out a bold flavor like mint so that both can come through in the end. I added a little bit of rum and peppermint to a key lime pie to turn the cocktail into a dessert.
This is a classic key lime pie made with egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk and lime juice. Key lime is the best choice for limes, but persian limes (the more common variety of lime) will work just fine. This is a no-bake key lime pie, so you can either opt for pasturised eggs or introduce the peppermint and rum elements to my baked key lime pie recipe for a similar effect.
I used just a splash of rum – enough to give it a hint of rum flavor – and a much smaller splash of peppermint extract. I decided to use peppermint extract instead of fresh mint because, in a mojito, the mint should be crushed to release its flavor but not ground to a pulp because you don’t really want to drink the mint leaves. I didn’t want to have chunks of mint leaves floating around in this ultra-creamy pie, either. Save the fresh mint for a garnish and stick with a bit of extract for this filling.
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Key lime pie is such a great way to use up a few limes. The standard key lime pie filling only really has three ingredients, and since it’s usually poured into a graham cracker crust, using a ready-made one brings the time required to make the pie down to almost nothing – although it’s worth noting that the pie must be allowed to set-up in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours (pref. overnight) before slicing.
The ingredients needed are limes (key limes or regular will do), eggs, and sweetened condensed milk. All you nned to do is whisk them together and you’re set. The milk is very thick and very sweet, but provides a great texture and background for the lime. The eggs help keep everything together. The filling is silky smooth and has a vibrant, juicy flavor that keeps it from tasting too heavy or rich.
Instead of using a regular graham cracker crust, I made my crumb crust out of crispy lemon cookies – hence the “double citrus” name for this pie. It added a great extra burst of flavor to the pie, which is especially delightful if you’re a citrus lover! Now, while I used lemon wafers for the crust, you might not have any available. If not, use regular graham crackers – not cinnamon graham crackers – and add either 2 teaspoons of lemon zest or 2 tsp lemon extract to the crumbs as you make the crust. The graham cracker crust will have a slightly more brown sugary flavor to it, but the lemon will come through regardless.
I usually make unbaked key lime pies. The acidity of the lime juice – and it is vital for the flavor to use fresh – “cooks” the otherwise raw eggs in the filling, much as lime juice “cooks” the fish used in ceviche dishes. While I like to stick to tradition, most recipes for key lime pie these days recommend baking the filling. To ensure that my recipe archives cover all the bases and will offer recipes that show both options, I baked my filling for this pie (even though I didn’t really have to). There is little difference in the texture of the two methods once the pie has chilled overnight in the fridge, so feel free to go either way. You’ll enjoy the resulting pie no matter how you get there. +Continue Reading
