Not-So-Perfect Key Lime Tartlets

I am a perfectionist. Does this surprise you? I hope not.

I told Nicole that I would make her favoritest dessert for her birthday so I bought all of my ingredients and got my tried-and-true key lime pie recipe all ready and pinned up on my refrigerator.

After assembling all of my ingredients, I realized I don’t have a pie plate. YEAH. Sometime during my last two moves, I seem to have lost it so instead of scrapping the birthday pie altogether, I decided to just use my muffin tin and make 12 small tarts. And then I ran into another hiccup but you have to read on to find out what it was…

I almost didn’t post this recipe because it didn’t come out the way it normally does but if tartlets are your thing, you should try this.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups graham-cracker crumbs (This is a packet of graham crackers in the box)

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup margarine or butter, softened

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup lime juice

2 teaspoons grated lime peel

2 large eggs, separated

1 cup heavy or whipping cream (I was so discouraged by the pie not coming out the way I had originally planned that I didn’t even bother to whip the cream as a topper. But please do, whip the cream if you’re serving it to guests. And all you do is whip is with a mixer. No sugar needed.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Take the packet of graham crackers, unwrap it, and put the crackers in a sealed Ziploc bag, making sure there’s no extra air in it.

Use a rolling pin, or any other heavy object, and roll roll roll until the crackers turn into fine crumbs.

In 9-inch pie plate, with hand, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter; press onto bottom and up side of pie plate, making small rim. My mistake #2 was melting the butter. I guess I’m so used to doing that that I didn’t think to NOT melt it. (Note-it should just be softened so that the graham cracker crust is malleable but still firm-ish)

I obviously used my muffin tins and because the butter was melted, the crust was super crumbly and messy. Bleh.

In medium bowl, with wire whisk or fork, stir sweetened condensed milk with lime juice, grated lime peel, and egg yolks until mixture thickens.

Here’s where I stopped taking pictures because I was so discouraged about my pie not being a pie. But read on…

In small bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat egg whites until stiff peak form. With rubber spatula or wire whisk, gently fold egg whites into lime mixture.

Pour lime filling into piecrust; smooth top.

Bake pie 15-20 minutes until lime filling is just firm. (I usually bake for 20-25 minutes because I’m terrified of getting people sick)

Cool pie on wire rack, then refrigerate until well chilled, about 3 hours.

In small bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat heavy or whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Spread on top of pie.

Here’s what mine ended up looking like:

Not too bad…

And here’s the birthday girl!

The tartlets actually tasted exactly like the pie, although I will say, the unsweetened whipped cream on top of the pie is key. It cuts into the sweetness of the pie filling and also makes it look pretty.

Did you know Ungaro makes tea cups?! Weird…

Anyway, I promise to re-post this recipe and show you how it’s really done. But in the meantime, make these because it was pretty delicious and great for portion control It takes a little bit more time because you have to shape 12 mini-pies instead of one big one but it’s may be worth it for dinner parties and the like.

Home Again

My brother is in town so I went home last weekend for a night to hang out with the fam. My mom prepared a typical meal but with the extra addition of corn. My mom calls my brother her “corn buddy” because he’s the only one in our family, besides my mom, who likes corn. He eats it as a snack and sometimes for dessert! (I know, I’m wondering how we’re related, too)

The fabulous cook!

The main feature was potato croquette with shredded cabbage.

I can never eat potato croquette at restaurants because they always add…you guessed it…corn. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like corn and will eat it on occasion (especially with Mexican food) but there is a time and place. And in a potato croquette is not one of them. Nor as a snack or dessert

I brought home some shishito from the farmer’s market. I like it because it’s occasionally spicy and because my nickname is in the name. Naturally.

Just blister it in a pan and add course salt. My mom also put some soy sauce on top.

These were REALLY spicy. I love spice but this hotness permeated my whole mouth and stayed on my tongue for at least 10 minutes afterwards. I brought some shishito home a few weeks ago and none were spicy and they were from the same farm.

For dessert, my dad bought cakes from a Japanese bakery.

Don’t you love it when things are labeled??

Guess which one of the six I ate!

Smitten Kitchen Love

I think my all-time favorite food blog is Smitten Kitchen. Deb, the blogger, lives in NYC and apparently has a tiny kitchen but still makes such beautiful food. And her photography is amazing as well.

Nicole was telling me about her salted brown butter rice krispie treats recipe and I knew I had to try it – despite not actually liking rice krispie treats. I happened to have marshmallows in my apartment because after watching Jon and Kate + 8 roast s’mores in the good old days and I just couldn’t get it out of my head. Thus, I bought a bag of marshmallows, “roasted” it with a chopstick over a candle flame, got a piece of Ghirardelli dark chocolate and sandwiched it between my all-natural graham crackers. It was sad, folks. A sad moment, indeed.

Of course, after eating two s’mores, I was at a loss as to what to do with the rest of the bag.

Deb to the rescue! I’m not going to re-post the recipe since I didn’t alter it in any way but you can find it here. And you can look at my pictures for a step-by-step or just because you like to look at pictures of food.

Apparently, this recipe is all the rage these days. A co-worker of mine had one bite and asked if it was the Smitten Kitchen recipe!

Don’t you just love recipes that only require four ingredients?

Make sure to grease the pan really well!

And you’re going to want to constantly stir the butter as it browns because it gets all foamy at the top and you won’t be able to tell the color until you KEEP MIXING!

Brown…

I used giant marshmallows but I actually recommend using the little ones because I’m guessing they will melt faster. Just keep mixing the marshmallows in until it gets pretty smooth.

There are going to be little brown bits from the butter. Don’t worry!

Mix, mix, mix.

And then use a greased piece of parchment paper to pat the rice krispies down.

Perfection! And no oven required

And voila! Amazingly buttery and salty and crunchy.

It is one of the easiest and most delicious snacks I’ve ever made. Try it!