Happy Birthday Dear Chris! (Key Lime Pie)

For my friend's birthdays, I like to bake. That is my gift to them. Alex got a chocolate pumpkin pie for his birthday in October (and has bugging me for another one) so when I remembered that Chris' birthday was coming up, I asked what he wanted. He had tasted one of my key limes pie that I made last summer and that is what he wanted.
How pretty are these guys? Key limes are great. These little tiny limes that have little tiny seeds and are such pretty colors. The best time to squeeze key limes are when they're yellow. Yellow key limes give more juice and are much easier to juice then the green ones. Anyways, one pound of key limes will yield about a half a cup of juice. How convenient that that is all you need for one key lime pie. I prefer to squeeze them by hand, slicing them in half, picking out the seeds and squeezing each little half into a cup. This takes about half an hour. I also like to crush my own graham crackers for the crust...which takes a long time too. But, I will quote, "your crust is f***ing amazing." Yeah, crust that is completely hand done is AMAZING!

See that yellowish color, that is real key lime juice. If you're eating key lime pie that is green, stop immediately. It's not real. Real things are always better.

Key Lime Pie
1/2 cup key lime juice
4 egg yolks
1 can (12oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 package graham crackers
6ish tablespoons UNSALTED butter

Mix together the key lime juice, sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks. Beat them. Do not just stir...beat them. You want it to get a little bubbly. This way, it'll be more airy and tasty when it's done.

Melt about 6 tablespoons of butter and mix with crushed graham crackers. Add about 3 tablespoons of sugar in there too. Mix it all up and press into a 9" pie plate. Pour the key lime filling into the crust and then bake for about 10 minutes at 350. This will help it set and will make anyone feel better about the raw egg that has gone into it.

Since you have those egg whites sitting around, go ahead and beat them with a little sugar until stiff peaks form. That's meringue. Meringue your pie and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the meringue starts getting little brown bits on it. I've never had a success with meringue so I've never put it on a key lime pie. I like them plain or maybe with a little bit of chocolate drizzled on it. Yum!