How to Make a Key Lime Pie with Kermit – Key West style

How to make Key Lime Pie, Key West style
Virtually every travel destination boasts a signature dish that shouldn’t be missed by the curious traveler. For example, there’s New Orleans’ jambalaya, Chicago’s deep-dish pizza and Philadelphia’ cheese steak sandwich. In the Florida Keys & Key West, that dish is Key lime pie.
Key lime pie is made from the Key lime, a fruit indigenous to the Florida Keys that’s smaller and rounder than limes found in a grocery store. Key lime pie is the official pie of the State of Florida, and millions of slices are savored every year by visitors and locals.
While the pie’s exact birthdate and creator are unknown, it was likely created in Key West in the late 19th century — predating refrigeration and the Overseas Railway that brought fresh ingredients like milk to the island at high speed.
Recipes for the original Key lime pie did not require refrigeration or baking. Instead, the acid in the Key lime juice reacts chemically with the other ingredients, a process called souring, and “cooks” the pie.
The typical ingredients of an authentic Key lime pie are sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, Key lime juice and a piecrust generally made from butter and graham crackers. The egg yolks give the pie a yellowish coloring; green pies are not authentic.
“I’m always amazed that these simple ingredients can make such a wonderful pie,” said Kermit Carpenter, resident Key lime pie expert and the owner of Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe.
In this video, you can watch Kermit make the pie that made Key West famous!
Ingredients:
200 g chocolate digestive biscuits
50 g butter, melted
1 x 325 g can condensed milk
Bottle of Key Lime juice
6 eggs

Preparation method:
1- Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. To make the pie base, pop the biscuits into a roomy plastic bag and secure at one end. Crush, with a rolling pin, until they resemble crumbs. Transfer the crumbs to a mixing bowl and add the melted butter. Stir well to combine.

2. Tip the crumbs into the base of a 22cm loose-bottomed cake tin, pressing down well with your hand.
3. To prepare the filling: Take the yokes from the 6 eggs and add the sweetened condensed milk.
4. Blend this together, and then add the a cup of key lime juice. Whisk for 1-2 minutes. Pour onto the prepared biscuit base.
5. Place into an oven for 20 minutes

welcome to the very tip of America Key West here in the Florida Keys home to great weather wonderful beaches and delicious food but forget all of that cuz today it’s all about desserts which is why we’re here at Kermit’s Key West Key Lime shop There’s the Man himself and I’m going to go inside to find out more about his most famous of [Music] dishes so we’re lucky now we’re we’re kind of in Kermit I’d say very zen garden it’s it’s lovely back here and you’re going to tell us and teach us how to make your world famous key lion pie it tastes delicious that’s what I’ve heard so what’s involved in in making it this is one of the easiest pies to make that there is there’s only three ingredients sweet and condensed milk key lime juice and egg yolks and and tell me a little bit about these because these are this is the key ingredient this is the key lime this is the key lime originally brought from Southeast Asia by the English they’re much Tarter a lot more acidity and full of seeds so we’ve got our key ingredients to make our key lime pie Kermit take it away what do I need to do okay the first thing we’re going to do we’re going to crack some eggs we just want the egg yolk I’m pretty sure I can do that one how many three six six we’re going we might want to speed this bit up I could be here a while so Kermit how long have you been here then I’ve been here almost 20 years 20 years 20 years so is it is it possible to put a figure on how many pies you reckon you’ve made over those 20 years uh quite a few we make about 200 a day and you multiply that times s days a week needless to say it was a lot of pie one more here we go right I’ve got my egg my egg yolks in there you’re going to add two cans of sweet and condensed milk to that okie dokie My grandmother used to spend her Winters down here and I used to come down to visit her and she would always make key lime pie that she had learned from one of the locals how to make and it was my favorite pie so when I came down here my sister said you have to do a theme when I was ready to open the store and she said what do people come down here looking for and I said ke pie and the rest as they say is history the rest is history so does this need to get nice and fluffy or just mix it up you’re just wanting to blend it okay at that point we’re going to add the key lime juice and you’re going to see a real difference when you put that key lime juice in there the chemical reaction of the juice hitting the eggs and the milk almost Cooks the egg in the old days they didn’t bake this really it was an ice box recipe okay how does that look to you that looks beautiful yeah okay that gets the Kermit seal of approval and then in goes half secret ingredient half a cup yeah and that’s right taste it wow forget the orange juice in the morning you want to have a little Swig of that that will wake you up so half a cup of this half cup y wooo and um I’m going to notice this hit yeah you’re going to notice the chemical reaction okay when you’re adding this juice it’s oh yeah you can see it thicken up already you can see it’s starting already takes a minute or two so this dessert now has become much more than a dessert it’s the um am I right in saying it’s the signed dish it’s the official state dessert of Florida and it’s also the City official dessert of Key West ready to pour in ready to pour in okay tell me when actually pretty much looks like we can get that all in and that is pretty much Kermit’s key lime pie recipe done pop it in the oven 20 what 30 minutes 20 minutes and you have a traditional Kermit recipe key pie now if you don’t want to wait those 20 minutes I just happen to have a piece of key lime pie here that we’ve dipped in chocolate sinful God bless Key West okay so this is your key lime pie dipped in chocolate yeah on a stick on a stick of course it’s on a stick wow that is amazing absolutely delicious you got to come here it’s a must visit in Key West Key Lime will be done soon and the ice cream lovely