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Key. Lime. Pie. Three letters but oh so delicious. Every year for the holidays, my job is to make the pies/desserts. This year, I was looking through cookbooks and bookmarking ideas when my dad asked me if I could make a key lime pie for our Thanksgiving. Never having made this specific pie before, I was intrigued. I said yes, of course and got to researching. I found a promising recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, The Craft of Baking. Then it was go time!

My family was spending Thanksgiving at the beach. We were meeting relatives and staying in a little beach house. Because I didn't want to lug around a ton of baking ingredients, I decided to make part of the pie at my house, and part of it at the beach house. I would say that the plan worked pretty well because the pie turned out fabulous.

The first thing I went about doing was making the curd filling. Before making this pie, I had no clue what key limes. I thought they were just like normal limes, but with a special name! I was shocked when my little sister brought home a bag of tiny little green things. They were so cute!

For the curd, I had to squeeze juice from about ten of the key limes. This proved to be harder than it looked because the limes were so tiny and firm. After a bit of work though, it worked just fine. After combining the ingredients for the curd; lemon juice, lime juice, sugar, zest, and some eggs if I recall correctly, the next step was to heat it over a double boiler. 

This step of the recipe is fairly time consuming because you have to continuously whisk the liquid for twenty minutes until it becomes the right consistency..that of curd. I have to say that I am guilty of the "finger in the bowl" taste test with this recipe. The curd passed the test with no problem. It was tangy and sweet with a powerful citrus flavor. I didn't think it could get much better. But in fact, I was wrong about that. After chilling the curd, I whipped up heavy cream until it was stiff and folded it in to the curd mixture. The result was a creamy-rich-citrusy-sweet burst of yumminess. 

I brought the curd with me in a glass container as my family and I drove down to the beach. Once we arrived (after walking down to the beach, of course) I went about making the pie crust. The recipe was pretty straight forward as far as pie crusts goes. Flour, salt, butter, shortening… 

 My grandma taught me to incorporate the cold butter into the mixture with two knifes, facing opposite directions so that they are able to cut the butter into finer and finer pieces. I find this very tedious, but it works! Once you get the grainy, flaky (somewhat dry even) texture
http://gourmeted.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/KeyLimeMeringuePie.pdf, you roll it into a disk and pop it in the fridge. While my dough was chilling I got out the pan and checked on my curd…aka another taste test..
Once the pie crust was ready, I rolled it out, placed it in the pan and slid it into the oven until golden brown. Simple!










The final step to this pie is the meringue. Basically, you just whip up the egg whites, sugar and vanilla and voila! Happiness in a bowl. But really, meringue is like edible liquid marshmallow fluff. It is quite incredible.

But what makes it even better? Layering it over a golden, flaky pie crust and fresh, citrus curd. I would say that would make it better. Oh yeah, and toasting it until fluffy, golden perfection.

 After Thanksgiving dinner, I was proud to set my pie on the table and serve a slice to all of my family members. From the empty plates, to requests for seconds, I have come to the conclusion that this pie was a success.

-ali

-p.s- I have linked the recipe from the book onto this blog post, enjoy!