Key lime pie is an American dessert made of Key lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk in a pie crust. The traditional Conch version uses the egg whites to make a meringue topping. The dish is named after the small Key limes (Citrus aurantifolia‘Swingle’) that are naturalized throughout the Florida Keys. While their thorns make them less tractable, and their thin, yellow rinds more perishable, Key limes are more tart and more aromatic than the common Persian limes seen year-round at grocery stores in the United States.
Key lime juice, unlike regular lime juice, is a pale yellow. The filling in Key lime pie is also yellow, largely because of the egg yolks.
During mixing, a reaction between the condensed milk and the acidic lime juice occurs that causes the filling to thicken on its own without requiring baking. Many early recipes for Key lime pie did not require baking the pie, relying on this chemical reaction (called thickening) to produce the proper consistency of the filling. Today, because consuming raw eggs can be dangerous, pies of this nature are usually baked for a short time. The baking also thickens the texture more than the reaction alone.
Despite its tart center, the top juxtaposes it adding more sweet flavors in some pies.
Taste The Fusion 