Perfect Key Lime Pie

Florida Key Lime Pie made right—light and fluffy—by beating the dickens out of eggs and sweetened condensed milk.

One of the greatest virtues of Key Lime Pie is it’s almost always the same, no matter where you get it. Both cheap and “fancy-pants” restaurants make it the same way—with lime juice, eggs and a can of sweetened condensed milk. And despite some foodie’s reverence for real Key limes—those Barbie-sized limes that are so tedious to squeeze—I find the juice from regular limes to be indistinguishable from the former.  On a recent trip to Destin, Fla., I found a Key Lime Pie that’s a cut above. It’s the creation of “Sheff” Charles Lee at the Beach Walk Cafe. The secret is in his technique—Sheff beats the heck out of everything. All this agitation creates a thick pie with all the great lime flavor but the texture of a cheesecake. Enjoy.

Chef Charles Lee, BeachWalk Cafe

—By Jill Melton, Relish Editor