Guidelines of the Highway

Usually, this is the place I inform y’all that each one recipes are adopted precisely as written with none changes for private style or taste preferences. This is nonetheless true, however for this specific bake-off, I made a half-serving of each recipe as an alternative of a full pie (my pie-loving coronary heart does have its limits!). I used a scale to weigh out the halves to make sure accuracy when baking. Simply attempting to attenuate meals waste over right here! All pies had been baked the night time prior and tasted the subsequent day.

Rating Tips

My workforce of seven style testers all aligned on the following pointers when rating every of the pies.

1. Filling Taste. Vibrant and zesty with out being too acidic or candy. Lime ought to be ahead however not overwhelming.
2. Filling Texture. Creamy and easy, not too dense however agency sufficient to carry its form.
3. Crust Texture. Ought to add a pleasant crunch with out detracting from the pie.

Most key lime pie recipes solely name for a handful of components. Limes, condensed milk, and egg yolks. Due to this, seeing slight variations in portions or further components added to the delicate distinctions that made every recipe stand out.

Now for the better part! Maintain scrolling to find which recipe reigned supreme in our Key Lime Pie Bake-Off.

After I first tried this recipe, I had to return and double-check that I hadn’t missed one thing, which normally isn’t a terrific begin. The great a part of this contender for the greatest key lime pie recipe is that it’s virtually fully no-bake. The graham cracker crust is baked after which stuffed and frozen. The remainder of it, nonetheless, we had a number of points with.

First, I had a number of style testers who weren’t so eager on the uncooked egg yolk scenario. Whereas there are some traditionalists who insist key lime pies be made with the raw filling, my workforce was unanimously anti-raw eggs. This additionally impacted the taste as some famous it was a bit eggy.

The most important situation, nonetheless, was the texture. The recipe notes setting the pie out forward of slicing in an effort to slice by means of, however the pie mainly melted inside 30 minutes (not best!). Total, I like the novelty of a frozen pie, however we had a number of structural qualms with this one. In the event you attempt it, eat it straight out of the freezer to make sure a stable pie.

Our notes on this pie had been truly fairly optimistic and everybody loved their slices. The pie filling flavors had been very well-balanced with out being too candy, and the style of lime was good as nicely. There was some debate about whether or not the meringue topping was actually wanted. Whereas the salted vanilla meringue was tasty, most style testers most well-liked a whipped cream topping to the meringue.

As the one who assembled each single recipe, I believed it was numerous further effort and dishes to make meringue when whipped cream would have been completely tremendous. (Although it was a good way to make use of up the leftover egg whites from utilizing solely yolks in the filling!) In the finish, this pie recipe was good, however a few of the different recipes edged it out on technicalities.

To be clear: this is a extremely good key lime pie recipe. Nevertheless, I’ve to confess that I used to be skeptical once I found that it doesn’t use lime zest and contains vanilla in the filling. However upon additional consideration (and extra intentional tasting), I discovered that the vanilla provides a stunning, virtually floral savoriness to the filling.

Style testers famous that this one leaned on the slightly-sweeter facet, nevertheless it did fulfill the group’s many candy enamel. My testers who weren’t followers of key lime pie loved this one the most as nicely. Nevertheless, I feel the lack of lime zest does make a distinction in the taste. In the event you actually need to punch up the limey-ness, combine it into the filling. The feel was extremely easy and total, this made for a fairly good pie.

This key lime pie had all the makings of a traditional and earned very excessive marks. The recipe combines Miette’s do-it-yourself graham crackers with Martha Stewart’s Key Lime Pie Filling blended collectively in a single pie pan. I’ll admit, this was my first thought: Do we actually have to make do-it-yourself graham crackers when it’s really easy (and handy!) to purchase a field? Nevertheless, the do-it-yourself crackers give the crust a noticeable textural distinction. Sure it’s further effort, so you will have my permission to make use of store-bought crackers. When it got here to the closing judging, we cherished the filling’s zingy, lime-filled taste. And with this pie’s creamy texture, we had been all quick followers.

Drumroll please… this is likely to be one in all the greatest key lime pies I’ve ever had. However I’ll admit: I used to be skeptical at first due to the coconut milk added to the filling. I knew the taste would work nicely, however I didn’t know if it will be too overpowering when paired with the limes. Nevertheless, the coconut milk acted as a pleasant candy base that helped mood the lime and stored it from being too acidic.

Some tasters couldn’t even inform there was coconut milk in the filling! The lime taste was upfront with out being overwhelming, and the one factor I observed after baking each single pie was that Adriana’s recipe is the just one that requires salt in the filling. That makes a distinction when it comes to bringing out the flavors. The feel was absolute perfection in its thick creaminess, and it was the one pie that each one of my style testers ate in its entirety. Run, don’t stroll to make this pie.