kwick but keyless key lime pie

Food snobs skip this one. It has that unforgivable American ingredient: Cool Whip. I kind of suspected it was coming when my 82 year old great aunt Gussie began listing the ingredients. Having first heard that the recipe came from New York rural relatives who retired to a big fancy new home in Florida, the state (as opposed to Florida, the village, childhood home of dr bob). Cool Whip and Florida retirements seem perfectly consistent in our small minds.

But this pie is wonderful. Besides being a snap to do. And a perfect use for that can of sweetened condensed milk we've had in storage for several years. (Oops, it puffed out and leaked. Better check your bomb shelter supplies!) Hire a kid to buy the Cool Whip. Or substitute it with real whipped cream. (Fat city!) Better yet, just lie about the recipe.

ingredients

1 pre-baked 9 in graham cracker crust shell
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
8 oz cream cheese (we use light!)
1/4 – 1/2 c lime juice
8 oz Cool Whip whipped topping (or 1/2 pt whipping cream, whipped).

instructions

  1. Beat all ingredients (except the crust!) until very thick, with an electric beater of course.
  2. Stick in the crust and smooth down level (it's stiff and requires persuasion).
  3. Stick in freezer an hour or two to speed up the cool down. Then shift to fridge.
  4. We used a springform pan and a bottom only graham cracker crust from scratch (read the box) since side crusts are a hassle to press into place and because we failed to score a pre-made crust in our supermarket drive-by.

notes

  1. Like tiramisu, key lime pie has increased in visibility in the past decade. You can even find key lime juice on the market these days. Key limes are a special kind of lime found only in the Florida Keys—a string of islands on the coast of southern Florida—and in Mexico and the southwest US. A bit yellowish both inside and outside in contrast with the usual green limes. However, this has been made millions of times across America without the real thing, so why bother now?
  2. There are many variations of this no bake recipe, including using the Cool Whip or whipped cream only as a garnish. The baked one uses eggs or egg yolks instead of cream cheese and Cool Whip and then bakes it to kill salmonella (and set the eggs), for example.
keylimep.htm: 28-may-2002 [what, ME cook? © 1984 dr bob enterprises]