Sweet & Sour “Key Lime” Pie with Buttery Gingersnap Crust | Recipe Drop

It really is true though, like I feel like I've never met anybody who doesn't like key lime pie. If you're not actually using key lime juice though, can you really call it a key lime pie? We're still calling it a key lime pie? Nia's bootleg key lime pie. Hey everyone, I'm Nia. Welcome back to another episode of Recipe Drop. Today we're making a key lime pie with a ginger snap crust, and I'm sure all of you watching have probably made a key lime pie before. It's refreshing, it's easy to make, and the ginger snap cookies in this recipe adds a really nice layer of depth. We're gonna start off by making the ginger snap crust, then we're gonna zest and juice some limes, make the custard, assemble, and then we're gonna serve it with some homemade whipped cream. I know some people make their crust in a food processor, especially if you're using shortbread cookies or graham crackers or anything like that. I personally really don't like taking out the food processor, so I'm just gonna crumble or mash up the cookies, I guess, in a big Ziploc bag. So here I have a box of ginger snap cookies. I'm using 180 grams. I really like pies where it uses a crust like this that's made out of like a cookie or something. I'm just gonna squeeze out as much air as I can. So I'm just using a rolling pin, you can use a meat mallet or whatever you have at home, and just kind of go crazy. Just get your anger out. Stress. Be mindful of not actually breaking the bag because some of the Ziploc bags can be a little bit thinner, so you can break them pretty easily. I like to go into and kind of roll over the crumbs to make sure that you get all the big pieces. So this is what we want it to look like. Let's go get my favorite butter warmer. I think it's really cute. I also have one at home, and you can use it for a lot of different things. You can use it to melt butter. I like to make oatmeal in mine. Sometimes I even make rice. Oh, and hot chocolate too. Anything like that is really good, or just steamed milk. Ah, there it is. Butter warmer. So I'm gonna melt four tablespoons of unsalted butter. If you do have a little bit too much butter or a little less, that's also okay. Better to have like five tablespoons than three. So for this recipe, I'm actually using these Rosti bowls. They're really great because they come in multiple different sizes. They have these lids, which is really nice, which covers the spout. And they're also nesting bowls. So there's actually a larger one too. So there's three that comes together in a set. So there's a small, medium, large. And then I lied, there's actually a smaller one too. So I'm gonna use the small one for the crust, and then I'm gonna use this medium one for the filling later. And the nice thing about them too is that they have this silicone ring on the bottom. So when you put it on the kitchen counter, it doesn't really move, which is really nice, especially when you're whisking and doing motions like that. Gonna just add the crumbs. You could just pour it out, or sometimes I like to just snip the tip off and then just pour them out like that. Then I'm also gonna add a fourth of a cup of granulated white sugar to this. And it might seem like it's a lot of sugar because you have the cookies and then you have the sugar, but I promise you it's still not too sweet. And we're gonna add some salt to balance it out as well. And then a half a teaspoon of kosher salt. And as you can see, there are still some pieces of cookie that are a little bit bigger, but I don't mind it. I think it kind of adds like a nice texture variation to the crust and adds a little bit of bite. All right, so the butter is melted. Just gonna add all the butter. Okay, so now we're just gonna mix this until all the crumbs are soaked in butter and we have a nice, and it looks kind of like a coarse sand. When it comes to pies, I actually really prefer crusts like this over like a classic doughy flour water pie crust. I don't know, I think these are actually just so much easier to make. Not actually, they are. And I just think they taste better. What we want is to be able to pinch it like this and it should kind of hold together like that. So I've also preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. And here I have a nine inch cake pan. And you also don't have to grease this because there's so much butter already in the crust. All right, I'm just gonna add everything to the pie tin. So now that we have all the crumbs in the pie tin, I like to use a little ramekin or you can use a measuring cup or just a straight edge cup, whatever you have at home, to kind of press the crust into the tin. It's a lot easier than using your hands, I think. You're just gonna get a nice and even layer all around. So I like to start with the edges first just to make sure that we have enough for the edges before we flatten out the bottom. It's kind of going like this. So as you can see, I'm kind of going around and just pressing it into the sides. And before I really press it into the sides to kind of compact it, I'm just making sure that there's an even layer all around the edges. I'm gonna kind of put the bottom of my thumb or my finger here and press into the sides using the bottom of this. And this way we get just a straight edge around the sides. So now you can see we have a really compact crust on the sides. Now I'm gonna go in on the bottom and just pack it down tightly here too. So now this is gonna parbake for eight to ten minutes just to kind of let the crust bake and set before we pour the custard in. Did you use the term parbake? Parbake means just kind of like partially bake the crust before. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. All right, we're doing nine minutes. The thing with key lime pie is actually that most recipes you see online, yes, they'll call for key lime juice, but then people will be like, oh, you know, use key lime juice. But the thing is that key limes, one, aren't the easiest to get a hold of, and two, if you can find them in the stores, they're literally like this small. So take a regular lime and then compare it to a key lime, which is like a fourth of the size. You get very little juice out of a key lime compared to a regular lime. So if you are trying to get two-thirds of a cup of lime juice out of key limes, you're going to be juicing for a while and you're also going to be juicing a lot of key limes. So for this recipe, I developed it only using fresh limes and a lemon, which will actually make the lime juice taste a little bit more like key lime juice. And I'm going to zest four of the limes. I tested it using the lime zest of all six at some point, and I kind of felt like that was a little bit too much lime zest, so sticking with four for this. You're actually also going to need some zest for the end for garnish, so I'd recommend just getting seven limes instead of six, or you could zest some more now and then put it aside, but fresh lime zest is best, I think. So this is about a fourth of a cup, I would say. Yeah, so we're just going to cut them in half and then we're going to squeeze the juice out of all of them. The key... Oh, it's done. Pretty bad. I hate this oven. Okay, well, we burnt the crust, or I burnt the crust. Our oven was running a little too high, but that's okay because we, or I, have a small oven, so it's not a big deal. But it's a reminder to make sure your ovens are calibrated and always good to have a backup plan. So I'm still going to show you how to make the filling, though, and the key to getting as much juice as possible out of the limes is to have a good juicer. This Fluser is amazing. It really, I really feel like it gets every last drop of juice out. So each lime, unless you have really dry limes, are usually about two tablespoons of juice. It's obviously not always the case for every single lime, but it's kind of the average. All right, we have just a little bit over two-thirds of lime juice. That's perfect. Now I'm also going to add in the juice of a lemon as well. So for the lemon juice, it's probably about three tablespoons. So now for the custard, I'm going to use this medium, medium large, rusty mixing bowl. So I have the lime and lemon juice, the lime zest. So I'm actually going to set this aside just for a quick second. I'm going to separate some eggs. I'm going to use five egg yolks for this recipe, and this is going to help to really set the custard. And instead of adding them directly into the bowl with the juice, I am going to add them to a separate small bowl first, just so I can mix it together before I add it to the rest of the ingredients. So the reason why I'm mixing the egg yolks in a small bowl before adding them to the rest of ingredients is because I want to make sure that the egg yolks are well mixed, because I am trying to avoid adding too much air into the actual custard mixture. So now I'm just whisking the egg yolks into the lemon and lime juice until it's completely incorporated. And what I'm trying to do is, again, avoid overmixing because I don't want to add too much air in here. Now I'm going to add one 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk too. And because this is so sweet, we don't have to add any extra sugar. Sweetened condensed milk is actually a really great ingredient because not only can I help you make really yummy pies like this, but it's also really good for no-churn ice creams, which that's probably my favorite way to use it. Also, I'm going to add a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt. Now I'm just going to go in with a spatula and mix until everything is completely combined and we have a nice smooth custard mixture. Now everything is mixed together and you can see that there's maybe a few air bubbles in here, but there's really not that many. And air bubbles are not going to make or break your pie. Normally, if I hadn't burned the pie, I would have shown you that we're going to pour it into the crust. We're not going to do that. We'll skip right to the finished product, which luckily I made a swap. Okay, here's the key lime pie that I made the other day. So the idea though is you bake it until it's set, again, 18 to 20 minutes, and then let it cool down for a little bit of room temperature and then pop it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour for it to really set and chill. You can probably all agree on that cold key lime pie is the best pie. So now for the topping. I know some people prefer like a whipped meringue. I prefer a heavy cream, especially for a key lime pie. I think meringue is really nice, but I think it's better for like a lemon pie. Here I just have cold heavy whipping cream. So I'm going to whip this on medium speed. With whipped cream, you have to be really careful because it overwhips really fast. And then also you want to stop kind of before you really think it's done because as you work with it, it's going to stiffen up even more. And if you already have really stiff peaks, then it's going to start to kind of curdle and almost look like buttery once you start actually piping and decorating the pie. Sometimes I like to put a towel over like this when I'm whipping cream just so that it kind of, we can avoid it from splattering everywhere, which it's already doing. I'm going to add in about a fourth of a cup of creme fraiche. This also helps to kind of cut some of the sweetness and adds a nice tangy flavor. I know some people use yogurt too, which I haven't tried, but it sounds really good. So you can see it's stiff enough to hold the shape, but it's still like a little bit runny. So now I'm going to add the creme fraiche whipped cream to a piping bag. You could just use a Ziploc bag if you want, or if you don't want to do this, you can just dollop it on and spread it out over the whole pie. And I like a lot of whipped cream, so I always make a little bit more than I think I'm going to need. And I also like to kind of put it all around. That's the best thing about pies and cakes is you can really decorate it however you want it to look and use as much frosting or cream or whatever as you want. So now you can see as I'm scraping out the creme from the bowl, the silicone ring on the bottom is keeping the bowl in place. So now that I have the piping bag filled with creme, I'm going to go up about like an inch and a half maybe and just cut at a diagonal. And this is going to give us kind of like a nice teardrop shape. So now I'm going to go in and I'm going to pipe it on as I kind of turn the pie. You can do bigger ones, you can do smaller waves, and that just creates a really nice kind of like squiggly line all around. And I didn't do huge size variations, but it looks really nice if you do some really big ones and then some really small ones too. I'm also going to decorate the pie with a little bit more lime zest. Before I was using microplane and I'm just using a bigger grater. I think it's nice to have some bigger lime zest pieces on top. Sprinkle them right on top. So here you have it, a super easy key lime pie with a gingersnap crust. Even though you didn't get to see the full progression of the pie being made, you at least got to see the most important steps. It's an amazing make-ahead recipe too. I mean you could pop it in the freezer for a few weeks if you want or you could make it a day in advance. It's really simple, it's really delicious, refreshing. Let's cut a slice. I love this whipped cream design because I feel like it covers just enough for the pie. Nice. Key lime pie is definitely one of my favorites. There's something about this crust that I really like. I love gingersnap cookies and so I think it's so fun to be able to incorporate into a pie. Super limey, not too limey though. Tastes just like a key lime pie. You'd never know there wasn't actually key limes in here. And I love the way the creme fraiche cuts through that super citrusy flavor and I love the pairing of the gingersnap crust. If you want the recipe you can find it linked below in the description. Like, comment, and subscribe. Let me know what you think of this recipe if you make it and I'll see you in the next video. You guys want some pie? Caesar does.