Key Lime Tart

One of the things I never understood was why this sweet-sour confection was called a pie.  My idea of a pie was a flaky white crust that was made of a lot of butter with a thick layer of filling, and more of the crust on top of the filling.  Key lime "pie" is not like this. 

The Key lime  "pie" as we know it has a graham cracker crust with a creamy citrusy filling.  Therefore I like to call it a tart rather than a pie.  For those of you who could care less, please just let me induge myself with this ridiculous notion. 

Jessica had made a wonderful Key lime tart for a dinner party one night.  I refer to it as "Jessica's Key Lime 'Tart'" even though the truth is, she obtained the wonderful recipe on a bottle of Nellie and Joe's Key West Lime Juice.  I absolutely fell in love with it and she kindly let me keep the bottle. 

Well, I have to say that the bottle sat in my kitchen neglected for a while.  Reasons being I could not find this bottled juice in my area or I would try other kitchen projects.  A few weeks ago, however, my local Whole Foods had fresh Key limes by the bag available.  Aha!  This was my chance!  I bought a bag, a box of graham crackers, and decided to make Jessica's Key Lime Tart for a dinner party that we hosted last weekend. 

I will say right now that one can buy readily available graham cracker crusts at supermarkets.  However, I wanted a crust that was thinner and crisper.  I actually also have a crust recipe that uses the ingredients of graham crackers, but it calls for some ingredients that I do not use regularly so I did not think it was practical to buy it just this one tart.  Maybe someday. 

Needless to say, the tart was a success.  Almost everyone had two servings; the exception was Thomas and a guest, who each had three.  The next evening, we were invited to a friend's house for dinner, to which I volunteered to bring dessert.  Thomas and I were still riding on the euphoria of the Key lime tart that I made it again for the following evening, where I must admit that we also ate a heafty chunk of the tart as well. 

For those of you who are intimidated by baking or avoid baking because it takes so long, don't do it with this recipe.  It truly is one of simplest to make.  And you can always use the supermarket graham cracker crust (I think Keebler's is a good one). 

Nellie & Joe's Key Lime Pie (YY's note:  AAHHHH!!  It's a tart!  It's a tart! And it's Jessica's!)  
from Nellie and Joe's  

One     9" graham cracker pie shell

One     14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

Three   egg yolks (whites not used)

Half      cup of Nellie & Joe's Key West Lime Juice

Combine milk, egg yolks and lime juice.  Blend until smooth.  Pour filling into pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Allow to stand 10 minutes before refrigerating.  Just before serving, top with freshly whipped cream and garnish with lime slices. 

YY's notes on:    

Crust   
If you are interested in making your own graham cracker crust, if you Google it, you will literally find hundreds of different variations.  I encourage you to play around with the ratios of the ingredients a bit, to find what is to your liking.  I learned that it is important thing to prebake the crust, or it will be a moist crust (unless that is what you are aiming for).

5 graham crackers, crushed to a powder
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1.5 teaspoon sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a bowl, mix the graham crakers and butter until well, ensuring that all crackers are moistened by the butter.  Mix in the sugar.  Pour the mixture in a tart pan or a springform cake pan, and using your hand,press the mixture to the bottom of the pan.  The mixture is only enough for the bottom of the pan.  If you prefer to have a side crust as well, increase the graham crackers and butter by one measurement. Bake the crust for 15 minutes, rotating the crust about 10 minutes into baking.  Let it cool on a rack.


Key lime juice 
I could not find bottle key lime juice, as Jessica had, in my area.  So I pounced on this opportunity presented by fresh ones.  We had just purchased a manual juicer, so I found it easy to extract the juice.  Now that I am comfortable with the recipe, I may try it with regular limes someday as well.  If you are using fresh key limes (they are about the size of golf balls), about eight of them would equal half a cup.

I also increase the amount of juice I used to halfway between half a cup and three-fourth of a cup.  This obviously makes it a bit more tart.