Another 4 ingredient dessert… Key Lime Pie

I love anything and everything lime.  But my number one favorite is key lime pie.  I’ve made several different key lime pie recipes, and honestly, they were all good.  But this one is probably THE EASIEST to prepare.    I mean, come on…FOUR ingredients!  And that’s including the graham cracker pie shell! 

Well, here we go.  Here are the four simple ingredients you’ll need for this.  Sweetened Condensed milk, eggs, lime juice and a graham cracker pie shell.

Using an electric mixer, in a medium bowl, (or in your KitchenAid mixer bowl) combine 2 cups of sweetened condensed milk (which is about 1-1/2 cans), 6 egg yolks (I’ll show you what you can do with the whites tomorrow!), and 2/3 lime juice just until the ingredients are combined, don’t overbeat it.

Pour into the graham cracker shell…

Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until the filling jiggles only slightly when shaken.  Cool until room temperature and then chill for several hours before garnishing and serving.

Of course, you can serve it as is, but if you want to pretty it up a bit, here’s what you can do…

Slice a lime into thin slices – get them as thin as possible.  Then pat them dry on paper towels.  Take a knife and cut from the center out to the rind on one side…

Whip some heavy cream to stiff peaks, and spoon it into a piping bag with a star tip — if you don’t have a piping bag, just make a cone out of some waxed paper, like I did here…

Go ahead and cut your pie into slices…I cut mine into eighths, because I like a nice hefty piece of pie!  Then, pipe a ‘rosette’ of whipped cream on each slice by just swirling the piping bag slightly while squeezing.  Then, take a slice of lime and twist it where you cut the slit – moving one side in one direction and the other side to the other direction.  Place on top of the rosette of whipped cream…

That’s it!  You’ve just made a professional looking garnish, easy peasy!

If that doesn’t make you want to head to the kitchen, I don’t know what would!  It’s simple.  It’s quick.  It’s DELICIOUS!!

Get Cookin’!

Fresh Fruit Turnovers

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  These things are the bomb-diggity!  They are similar to fried pies you might be familiar with (especially if your local…think Haney’s fried apple pies!), but they are baked, not fried.  I dare say they’re healthier than fried pies because of that…but with all the butter and cream cheese in the dough…I’m not so sure.  But who cares…they are divine!  I made two kinds…peach and cherry, because I had both that needed to be used before they went bad.  You could make these turnovers with pretty much any fruit though…I’d love to make some raspberry ones sometime.

So anyway,  let’s get started.  First you need to make the dough.  Start by adding the following to your food processor bowl:

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp sugar

Now, cut one stick of butter into small cubes, and do the same with one  8 oz. block of cream cheese. 
Add the butter to the flour mixture…

And process for about 10 seconds to blend, until it looks like coarse crumbs.  Now, add the cream cheese chunks and pulse quickly about 25 times or until the dough forms a ‘ball’ in the bowl.  Dump that big wad of dough out onto waxed paper and knead it gently 2 or 3 times to bring it all together well.  

Flatten into about a 6 inch square, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least a half hour (or up to 2 days).

While the dough is chilling, prepare the filling.

If you are using something like peaches, you’ll need to chop your fruit.  If you’re using berries, just leave them whole.  Of course, for the cherries, I had to pit them…I don’t have a cherry pitter (but I’m now trying to find one!), so I just cut the cherries in half and scooped the pit out with a grapefruit spoon.  I left my cherries in halves, but next time, I’ll go ahead and quarter them, b/c the halves were a little too big.

So, chop up about 2 cup of  fruit and add the following to it:

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp cornstarch (or 2 tbsp flour)

1/4 tsp salt

Stir together…

Now, grab your dough from the fridge and roll it out.  At this point, decide whether you want to make half-moon shaped turnovers or triangle shaped turnovers.  If you want the half moons, just cut circles out of your dough (I didn’t have circle cutter the size I wanted, so I just used a plastic container!):

Or, if you want triangles, cut squares…

Place your cut out pieces on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Then spoon about 2 tbsp of fruit filling on HALF of the dough:

Now, make an egg wash with one egg yolk and 2 tbsp milk or cream.  Brush the egg wash along 2 edges of the dough (or along half the circle)…

I just use my finger for that…it’s just easier.  Then, fold the dough over…

Use a fork to press the edges together…

Then brush the egg wash over the entire turnover, and cut 2 or 3 slits in the top with a sharp knife.  Sprinkle a little sugar over the top.

Now bake the turnovers at 375 for about 25 minutes, or until they’re golden brown.  Remove them to wire racks and they’ll look something like this:

Now, make a glaze with about 1 cup powdered sugar and a few tablespoons of milk.  Just add milk until it’s a smooth drizzling consistency:

 

Mmm…I think I just put on another 5 pounds just looking at those! 

These will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for 2 days.  They will get a litte ’soggy’, but you can crisp them right back up by popping them in a 375 degree oven for a few minutes.

This recipe made  about 10 triangles and oh, about 6 or 8 small half moons.  We took them on a picnic down to Cumberland Falls…and only came back home with a couple!  Yes, they are THAT good!

I think they’d also be good with just some milk chocolate inside, or a cream cheese filling, or OOH, what about chopped apples with some caramel sauce.  Well, there went another two or three pounds on the ol’ hips!

Please don’t let the length of my post discourage you from trying these…they really aren’t difficult at all.  I just try to give you as many step by step photos as I can!

My ‘famous’ Kentucky Derby Pie

This is one of my most ‘famous’ pies.  Everyone loves this pie…especially my husband.  And when I had my business…this was a big seller too.  I even sold these pies to the hospital for them to serve in the cafeteria!  I thought I’d share the recipe with my blogging friends.  If you like chocolate and pecans…you’ll love this pie!

First off, let’s make the crust.  Of course, you can use a premade crust, but once you’ve tasted a homemade crust, you’ll never want to go back!  And this is a super easy crust.  It is a Shaker recipe – for those who are local, you’ll know who I’m talking about!   

For the crust, you’ll need:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

7 tbsp butter, cold

2 tbsp cold water

 

First, place flour and salt in large bowl.  Then you need to grate your butter.  I use a microplane type grater, but a basic box grater will work too.  Freezing the butter for an hour or so before grating helps a bit too.

Some people cut their butter in with a pastry cutter and that’s perfectly fine…but I’m just too lazy and don’t like doing it that way.  Once your butter is all grated, just stir it into the flour.  SO much easier than cutting it in with a pastry cutter, in my opinion!

Now, just add the water and stir with a fork until the flour is moistened.  Mix with your hands into a ball that cleans the bowl.  (You may need to add a bit more water of flour, if your dough is too dry or wet)  Don’t overwork it though, that will make it tough.  Just get it to come together.

Now, just roll it out into a circle large enough to fit into your pie pan.  Place it in your pan.  Crimp the edges to make them pretty.  You can either use a fork to make indentions, or make a fluted edge with your fingers.  It’s kind of hard to show you here because you need both hands to do it, and of course I had to have the camera in one hand.  But, to do the fluted edge, you’re going to take two fingers of your left hand and place them on the edge like this (I’ve already done the whole crust here, but hopefully you’ll get the idea!):

Then, place one finger on your right hand between those two and pull it inward a bit.  This forms the fluted edge.  Do this all the way around the crust.  For this pie, we don’t need to prebake it, but if you do need a prebaked crust, just prick the crust with a fork several times and bake at 350 until lightly golden brown.

Now, let’s make the filling.  You’ll need the following:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 stick butter, melted

2 eggs

1 cup chopped pecans

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips*

1 tsp vanilla

 

First, put the flour and sugar in a medium sized bowl.  Then pour in the melted butter.

Sitr together and add in the eggs.

Stir those in then add the vanilla.  Add the pecans and chocolate chips.

Stir that all together and then pour into the pie shell.

Now bake at 350 for about 40-45 minutes, or until a nice golden brown.  It’ll look like this…

I wish I could show you what it looks like on the inside, but I couldn’t cut this pie because I was giving it to our sweet neighbor as a thank you for all the vegetables she’s given us from her garden. 

*Note on the chocolate chips:  You can use any type of chocolate chips you like…bittersweet, semisweet, milk, it doesn’t matter.  But what I like to do, and what I think makes my pie a little different than most, is to combine milk and semisweet chips to make up the 1-1/2 cups.  I do about half of each, but just use what you have, it’ll be good no matter what kind of chocolate chips you use.

I really hope you try this pie…I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t like it!