Florida Pie: My Tuesday With Dorie Session

This week's Tuesday with Dorie baking project is called Florida Pie, which is key lime pie with a twist from
Dorie--she adds coconut in the form of a coconut cream (heavy cream cooked down with coconut). She says you can substitute regular limes, but not here in Florida, right? That would be some form of heresy, especially when key limes are so easy to get here (and mostly imported from Mexico these days, by the way...)












I keep being surprised by how easy Dorie makes the recipes...Easy steps, the right order...I
started with the crust--homemade, even though in the notes, Dorie says she buys store-bought, but that wasn't going to cut it, especially after my pebble Oreo crust last week. I did the graham crackers in the processor (I guess it's not THAT hard to clean, right?)...Bake and freeze, except I have a side-by-side fridge/freezer in this apartment. This has to be the stupidest invention ever (GE? Are you hearing me? No more side by sides, really.)--my pie plate wouldn't fit into the freezer-until I tilted it and forced it...

Once I got the crust into the freezer, I turned to juicing a pound of key limes...(that would make about 1 1/4 cups juice)...Here is my mise en place...I don't think I made any measuring errors this week.












Reducing the cream with coconut in it, then letting it cool...moving on to whipping the yolks with the sweetened condensed milk and juice..Coconut cream onto the bottom of the crust, topped with the yolk and lime juice custard. Bake 12 minutes...Cool slightly, return to freezer...

The meringue is interesting--Dorie has you cook it (for safety's sake, I am sure) then whip it to stiff peaks. Gently fold in remaining coconut

I am taking the pie to a get together this evening, but in the line of duty to the blog, we took a slice out of it...you know, to photograph it...well, and..you know, to taste it. My cutting skills need work, I guess...but that first piece is always tough!












Anyway, Ian, Bryn and I shared the tastes of that first piece...An excellent key lime pie, we all agreed. I love the texture--and the taste--of the coconut in this pie, but I find myself wishing I'd toasted the coconut for the meringue instead of stirring it into the the meringue...next time, that will be the way I make it (I DO have all that extra key lime juice, after all...maybe I'll have to make it to take into the magazine again...)