Key Lime Pie at Cake Club

For those of you that read the blog regularly, you will know that I often refer to Nigella Lawsons recipes. I have been an avid fan of hers since watching her Nigella Bites tv series serveral years ago. Her recipes have always been reliably good and are often hard to improve on.

So when my friend Caroline and I chose to bake Key Lime Pie from her wonderful book 'How To Be A Domestic Goddess' at our Cake Club, i had no qualms about how well it would turn out.

The method was simple enough, a basic pie crust made of a mixture of digestive biscuits and butter. The filling involved abit of lime zesting and egg white whipping.

During the baking, the smell of limes tantilisingly enveloped the kitchen. When it came out of the oven alittle burnished on the top, we werent worried, because it was a Nigella recipe and it would be delicious.

As promising as the pie turned out in smell and appearance, taste-wise it did not live up to our Nigella expectations. The base was nice enough, very much like that of a cheesecake. However the filling was what i would imagine lime flavoured scrambled eggs to taste like. It was also difficult to eat without pulling a face from the sourness of the lime juice. We were very disappointed but these things happen occassionally at Cake Club.

I will always remain an advocate of Nigellas recipes, but i wont be recommending or revisiting this one.

Recipe - Key Lime Pie from Nigella Lawsons How To Be A Domestic Godddess

Serves 6-8 people

Ingredients:

For the base:

200g Digestive biscuits

50g softened unsalted butter

23cm springform tin

For the filling:

5 large egg yolks

397g can sweetened condensed milk

zest of 3 limes

150ml lime juice (of 4-5 limes)

3 large egg whites.

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C/gas mark 3 and put in a baking sheet. Put biscuits and butter into the food processor and blitz until it has all reduced to oily crumbs. Press these into the tin, lining the bottom and going a little way up the sides, and chill in the fridge.

Using an electric whisk, beat the egg yolks until thick, add the can of condensed milk, grated zest and the lime juice. Pour into the lined tin and place on baking sheet in oven. Cook for 25 minutes, when the filling should be firm. It may puff up and then on cooling, fall. 

Leave to cool on a rack before unmoulding, and chill well.