Kitchen Experiments -- Key Lime Meringue

So we had some key limes to use. A lot of key limes in fact. Enough key limes that when juiced made over 1/3 C of juice. So what to do with key lime juice became the question. I  decided to make a key lime meringue. I essentially took an Alton Brown lemon meringue pie (found here) and modified it a bit. The biggest modification was substituting key lime juice for the lemon juice. I noted the modifications with italics. (Yes, I believe I can modify something that even the great Alton Brown puts down as a recipe.)

Ingredients
Lemon Filling:

4 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water 

1 1/3 cups sugar -- I used half regular sugar, half vanilla sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup key lime juice + a splash of lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon finely grated key lime zest

1/2 TBS vanilla
1 (9-inch) pre-baked pie shell -- I used a basic pie crust recipe that had no foods I couldn't eat
1 recipe Meringue, recipe follows

Directions

 

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Whisk egg yolks in medium size mixing bowl and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine water, sugar, and salt. Whisk to combine. Turn heat on medium and, stirring frequently, bring mixture to a boil. Slowly add in the cornstarch at this point. Boil for 1 minute, or until clear. Remove from heat and gradually, 1 whisk-full at a time, add hot mixture to egg yolks and stir until you have added at least half of the mixture.

Return egg mixture to saucepan, turn heat down to low and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 more minute. Remove from heat and gently stir in butter, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest until well combined. Pour mixture into pie shell and top with meringue while filling is still hot. Make sure meringue completely covers filling and that it goes right up to the edge of the crust. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until meringue is golden. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Make sure pie is cooled completely before slicing. Refrigerate before slicing to ensure it is cool through.

 

Meringue

4 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar I didn't add any since I didn't have any
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar

Place egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form and then gradually add sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Use to top key lime filling.

 

The meringue is nothing special but the vanilla sugar makes it taste a bit calmer with the tartness of the key limes. Beware this much key lime is eye popping tart.

Chris really likes it and I really like it. It would work well with the lemon filling as well. I think I would make the same modifications to the lemon pie (vanilla and such) as I did to the key lime pie. Chris thinks it is better than lemon meringue, though that may be what happens next week as we have a bunch of lemons that need to be used soon. :) I will probably make some lemon poppyseed muffins and then a lemon meringue pie. 

 

This was my second attempt at a meringue ever and my first attempt at a meringue at altitude. It didn't rise as much as I would have liked, but we will see if it gets better with the lemon meringue. I knew I couldn't do it last week because of all the rain, so it was nice to get the drier weather the past couple of days.

 

We originally thought of making a traditional key lime pie, but since cheesecakes at altitude are practically impossible we opted to try something completely new. As with most of our kitchen experiments it turned out well. Even scrapping the pan for the filling was tasty stuff. 

 

Okay, after writing this I suppose I need to go get a piece of pie.