I’ve always favored fruity desserts. I love strawberry shortcake, sherbet, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry pie… to name a few! Ever since I tried the key lime pie martini from the Tini Martini in St. Augustine, I’ve been on such a key lime kick. So for Easter, I was determined to make something with them, not only because I love key limes, but because my dad does too. Last year I made fantastic lemon bars so I decided to look for recipes for key lime bars. I found a seemingly simple recipe on marthastewart.com, so I decided to go for it and switch a couple of things up!
Here’s what you’ll need:
• 1 cup finely ground graham cracker crumbs (I decided to use U.S. Mills New Morning Organic CINNAMON graham crackers (found at Whole Foods), I figured the cinnamon would marry nicely with the key limes, which happened to be true! Since these graham crackers contain cinnamon and sugar, I just cut back on the amount of sugar and key lime juice the recipe calls for, so the bars wouldn’t be too sweet).
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated lime zest
• 2/3 of a cup of fresh squeezed lime juice (about 23 key limes… they’re teeny tiny, so if you want to use fresh squeezed juice, this is a dessert to make only for people you really love since it’s kind of time consuming squeezing them all by hand!)
• 1 cup sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)
• 1/4 cup heavy cream (this is for the whipped cream, which I opted not to make)
Here’s what you do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• For the crust: Mix together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter in a small bowl.
Press the mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom of an 8 inch square glass baking dish.
• Bake until dry and nicely browned, roughly 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely.
• For the filling: Put egg yolks and lime zest into the bowl of an electric mixer (using the whisk attachment). Mix for about 5 minutes on high speed, until the mixture is nice and thick.
Reduce the speed to medium and add the sweetened condensed milk in a slow stream.
Bring speed back up to high, mix for an additional 3 minutes, until thick. Bring speed to low and add in the fresh squeezed key lime juice, mix until combined.
• Evenly pour and spread the filling into the glass baking dish that the crust is in. Bake (rotating dish half way through) for 10 minutes until the filling is set, about 10 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack then refrigerate for at least 4 hours (I refrigerated mine overnight).
• Cut into 2×2 bars and garnish with lime wedges.
Why HELLO, love. These bars were tart, smooth, and the crunch from the crust makes them the perfect little dessert to cool you down this Spring and Summer! My sister made me leave what was left at her house so she could eat them… which only means I’ll have to make another batch for myself asap!
In other Easter news, my sister made a delicious bread pudding with challah bread. She soaked the raisins in rum, too! We poured a little Bailey’s over the ice cream and it and it was heavenly goodness and kept us all going back for more! Send us an email if you want the recipe!
I also spotted her cleaning her granite countertops with method’s daily granite stone surface wipes! The only time those bunny ears came off of her head all day was when I chose to rip them off… sibling love 
Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday
[Chels]
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