Elevate Your Key Lime Pie Crust With One Simple Addition
When it comes to Key lime pie, typically it's the either the custard or the meringue topping that's the star of the dessert. The Key lime in the custard gives it the perfect balance of tart and sweet, while the meringue, if made right, is light, fluffy and melts in your mouth. The crust, on the other hand, usually isn't any more special than in any other pie. Sure there are hacks you can follow to improve the texture of the dough, including adding vinegar, mixing in vodka, or letting it chill for 30 minutes, but there's one thing you can do to improve the flavor.
According to Real Simple, all it takes is adding finely chopped nuts directly into the flour along with the dry ingredients for the pie crust. Salted and roasted nuts work especially well because they counteract the sweetness of the pie with a hit of saltiness while adding another layer of nutty flavor. Try macadamia or hazelnuts in your next Key lime pie and you'll be pleasantly surprised by the taste and texture of the results.
Does this work with graham cracker crusts too?
The age old question of if a Key lime pie should have a graham cracker or flour crust still remains unanswered, but if you're in favor of the graham cracker version, the addition of nuts works just as well as it does in a flour crust. As per Sally's Baking Addiction's instructions, you'll simply blitz the nuts along with the graham crackers in the food processor. Once both are thoroughly combined, you'll add the butter and sugar, then press it into a pie dish as you would with any other graham cracker crust.
If you really want to take the nutty flavor of your Key lime pie crust to the next level, you can go all in with a nut-only crust. Food52's version calls for a simple combination of chopped nuts, sugar, salt, butter, and egg white. Whether it be mixed with the flour, graham cracker, or just by itself, you can't go wrong with adding nuts to your Key lime pie crust.