Mid-Week Treat ~ Key Lime Pie

(recipe found in the Cutie Pies cookbook for the recipe for both the crust and pie, click here)

After receiving the Cutie Pies Recipe Book from my friend Katrina in the gift exchange, we decided on a pie to make and a day that would work for both of us. We laughed and talked while discussing daylight savings time, both of our little guy's and their latest achievements, the weather, gas prices and JC Penney's recent turn around in customer friendliness. As we worked on constructing the pie, we asked one another questions like:

1. Will you be using a pie plate? 

2. Why are the competitor graham crackers so expensive???

3. Do you have a hard time separating the egg yolk from the whites? 

and so on...

Baking is always a joy to me so talking as I bake was even more fun.

My daughter "Jai" asked if she could crunch up the graham crackers- she showed me something new today... when rolling the crackers is taking too long, take either end of the rolling pin and crunch up those crackers - I also shared this new found "trick" with Katrina.

Do you recognize that colander? 

The crust was easy to make, melted butter, a tiny bit of sugar and graham crackers!

Here you can see the limes are zested and there are a few eggs yolks in the bowl. I have a terrible time separating yolks from whites by using the back and forth in the shell method. I have found, if I break the egg in the palm of my hand and let the egg whites fall from between my fingertips... I get a perfectly WHOLE egg yolk when I do it that way!  When I don't- well, just look at the bowl and you will see what happened to the 4th yolk.

"Jai" juiced limes for me, she was a great help today.

And finally - the moment I have been waiting for - a chance to use "Joann" the Mixer (named by my daughter)! I just love this machine, and like "Jai" quickly reminded me as I commented on how quiet the machine is... "And it doesn't rock!!!" I used that Sunbeam mixer until I could use it no more.

Let's just look at her and enjoy the vision that she is LOL! 

 Back to the pie filling, this is the mixture of lime juice, lime zest, condensed milk and egg yolk.

Just before I placed the filling in the fridge to settle and develop in flavor, I decided to give a light whisk to make sure all the components came together in the filling. As you can see, I was totally sold on getting that Tangerine KitchenAid, so much so- I purchased the whisk to match my kitchenAid if I ever got one. Even though I kept the Almond finish, I couldn't part with this little whisk - 

Pie crust baked for 16 minutes on 325 degrees.

Components for the whipped cream on the right - this is the pie just before baking.

Once again, I am in Heaven using the mixer to make the whipped cream

Fresh whipped cream is almost too easy to make - so good!

Pie out of the oven after baking 16 minutes at 325 degrees.

Topped with the freshly made whipped cream and garnished with zested lime (which I love) and lime wedges.

Check out Katrina's pie here. I am sure we will bake again, we both are looking into savory recipes to try now. This book was a really cool addition to my collection, if you are in the market for a new recipe book, give Cutie Pies a try!