Lime pie

The usual pie crust suspects, 'cept dif-ernt.  A/P flour, W/W flour, oatmeal ground to bits in a coffee mill, sea-salt, dark brown sugar, cold butter rubbed in. 

Cold water added and mixed by the tablespoon. Ice-cold water. Gelid ice-cold water. Near freezing gelid ice-cold water, or possibly just cold tap water.  

This took up more than I would have imagined. Started out confidently with four tablespoons, but that made hardly any difference at all. Quickly doubled that in one tablespoon increments, then doubled it again, so over 1/4 cup for this small amount of flour, but that's the thing about living in a desert -- it makes everything dry. 

You know how those Graham cracker crusts do with melted butter? This is close to that except the butter is kept cold and water is the thing that adheres. It's kind of like making Graham crackers from scratch except it has brown sugar instead of molasses. None of that rolling nonsense. Just pressing. 

The pie crust is baked before the filling is added, just as a Graham cracker crust would be. 

Only used two limes. What, do you think we're lime-insane over here? 

The zest was processed further in the coffee grinder, handy little thing. Used the zest of two limes. I broke the lime squeezer, so the juice was squeezed through a potato ricer, and Boy, does that thing ever work. Good to have that leverage because it squeezed out much more than I did by hand

Okay, here's the alchemy, the magic if you like. Gather the children around so they can see too. The sugar-milk does not actually boil. A thermometer assures the temperature is well above what is needed to cook egg. But the mixture still hasn't thickened and one is tempted to add corn starch as insurance against a sloppy wet filling. Off the heat the mixture thickens instantly the moment the lime juice is added. Schwiiiiiiiiing, just like that.

No need to bake any further. But if you were to bake further, as this pie here was in order to bake the topping, then the egg mixture becomes something akin to a quiche or a soufflé. It tends to foam up a little bit. This hints at other possibilities. Beaten egg white, for example. 

At this point the pie is finished, but there is surplus pie crust mixture that could be either used, or saved,  or discarded. The pie is allowed to set partially before the topping is dimpled on top to guard against it sinking. The pie is baked again to brown the topping. 

The pice crust dough was becoming more clumpy than I wanted so it was refrigerated to chill the butter within it. The dough clumps were processed briefly in a mini Cuisinart to break apart the clumps without developing the gluten in the flour. 

One small portion was reserved and pressed as a regular pie crust to form a decorative leaf. Hey, it's ART all the time over here. 

I think, but I am not sure a recipe appeared for key lime pie on the back of the label for Eagle® brand condensed milk, and I am imagining that is what most baby boomer types think of when they think of lime pie, if they ever do think of it, even though it has nothing to do with authentic key limes which aren't all that great if you've ever tried them. I would wager, say, $10.00 on that. Eagle brand milk is exactly what it says it is with a lot of sugar added so that it forms a kind of milk syrup. So, if your honey bunch should be so cheeky as to suggest your pie does not comport with the pie they are familiar by their mother's household, then you could respond with something along the lines of "Oh yeah? Well your mother got her ideas from the back of a label on a can, you twit!" Because if you don't, you'll next have your precious invaluable personal creativity compared with a published recipe for Mock Apple Pie on the back of a box Ritz Crackers®, it's a slippery slope, and it's up to you to put an end to it. 

This is Carnation® brand evaporated milk which is different. In both cases, condensed and evaporated, part of the water is removed to make the whole effort of canning, transportation, marketing generally, more economically sensible. As already noted, Eagle has sugar Carnation does not. Therefore, sugar must be added to the evaporated type. 

I'm not getting the silky texture exactly right here. I think the problem is that I am allowing the milk to simmer too much, and that is expressly forbidden. If I would just learn to listen this situation wouldn't come up. Nevertheless, the pie is delicious. And I must take credit for the crust because I invented that with no help from anybody. 

Except watching ten million people do it.

Did I ever tell you about the two lime pies at the Tamarisk in Breckenridge? 

Well, there we were having a perfectly nice sport-related holiday up there that involved a big dinner. Preparations took all day. The cook prepared two large-size lime pies with meringue toppings. 

As countertop space was a premium the cook set the pies out on the edge of a wall of snow, made by a pathway having been shoveled to the back door and along the front of the floor to ceiling glass. Later another guest put his St. Bernard dog outside to get the beast out of the condominium. The dog slobbered constantly all over the place, very gross. The dog was friendly, but gross. Everybody loved/hated having the dog around, mostly because it was so BIG! 

You see where this is going. In a careless moment, and it only took a moment, the dog devoured both pies. I've never seen the cook so mad, and the dog owner never did live that one down.