Name: Key Lime Pie with Shortbread Crust
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 28 min
Total time: 3 h 48 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 2 cups shortbread cookie crumbs; 2 tablespoons sugar; 2 14 oz. cans of sweetened condensed milk; 1/2 cup sour cream; 2 limes, zested; 3/4 cups of lime juice (I used about 5 Persian limes, but you might need one or two more; if you're using key limes, you'll need about 24 limes); 2 egg yolks; whipped cream, for garnish

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This Key Lime Pie with Shortbread Crust recipe is lusciously creamy, yet light and refreshing. Best of all, it’s easy to make. It’s distinctive from most recipes, because the crust is made from shortbread, rather than graham crackers.

This shortbread crust is the same crust I use in my blueberry cheesecake: it’s the crust that causes all my friends to lose their minds at its deliciousness. Citrusy, tart, and sweet, this pie is a lime lover’s dream come true!

This Key Lime Pie with shortbread crust is even more delicious than it looks! Light, refreshing, creamy, sweet and tart, this pie is DELIGHTFUL! And I love my pie dish I was sent to review by Great Jones!

Let’s Talk About the Shortbread Crust

A Recipe for Homemade Shortbread:

First off, homemade shortbread is easy to make, and my recipe is EXCELLENT, so if you’d like to go the distance, as I always do, make your own. Use this link for Buttery, Easy, Scottish Shortbread Cookies. They are awesome! They have enough butter in them that this crust recipe needs no added butter, like a graham cracker crumb crust does. I just stick some cookies into my food processor with a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and whir them around. You’ll need to process enough cookies that you come out with at least 2 cups worth of crumbs.

Crushing the shortbread with my food processor.

I use my food processor to crush the shortbread, but you could certainly put the shortbread in a ziplock bag, and use a rolling pin.

Do I Have to Use Homemade Shortbread?

Absolutely not. Walker’s Shortbread is sublime, albeit a bit pricey. But I suppose you could even use the Nabisco Lorna Doone brand, or Pepperidge Farm’s Dublin Shortbread. I’ve never done this, mind you, but I don’t see why you couldn’t.

Sprinkling a bit of sugar onto the shortbread in the food processor.

The Pie Dish I’m Using: Great Jones

The shortbread crumbs going into the Great Jones Pie Dish.

One of the reasons I decided to make this pie was that Great Jones Cookware sent me one of their adorable pie dishes to try, and review. Here’s my review of their ceramic red and white pie dish (dubbed THE SWEETIE PIE): it worked beautifully, looks adorable, and my key lime was sublime in it.

Using a meat pounder to press the shortbread crumbs into a pie crust.

I use my meat pounder to press the shortbread crumbs into the pie dish. But you can use the flat surface of a ramekin, or a coffee cup, or whatever you like. Isn’t my Great Jones pie dish adorable?

I highly recommend you check out Great Jone’s line of cookware, since they make a variety of products. Personally, I have my eye on their sheet pans, (I’d like mine in blue, please) which they have named the Holy Sheet Pan. and/or the matching set of 3 sheet pans, entitled the Sheet Show. Bonus points for clever marketing.

Great Jones’ Hot Dish and Lid, in the color blueberry, can go on my Christmas list NOW, please. And who doesn’t need a cutie patootie set of Matching, Nesting, Mixing Bowls I sure do! (They even have pouring spouts on the sides!) Just go check out their stuff! It’s unique, and just too cute for words. (They’d make a great unique gift for any cooks you love.)

The shortbread crust.

About the Pie Filling/Custard:

In my opinion, the only thing slightly labor intensive about this pie is squeezing the limes, and I’d say I squeezed about 5 Persian limes to get the 3/4 of a cup of juice that I needed for the recipe. If you have a juicer, you’re home free. If you don’t (and I don’t), I find that the citrus squeezer that I’m linking below the recipe card is excellent for making short, relatively painless work out of lime squeezing.

Pouring the custard into the baked pie shell.

And yes, I used Persian limes (the big ones) and not Key Limes which are teeny weeny, to make this Key Lime Pie. Is it false advertising? Well, yes, technically, but my intentions are all for your good, dear reader. You’d have to squeeze so many of those teeny weeny things (it would probably take about 24 of them), that you’d be at it for EVER, and from my research, the difference in flavor is not enough to warrant seeking out and squeezing all those tiny little nuisances. So squeeze fewer large limes, and rest assured, your dessert will be delicious.

Scraping the bowl of the last of the custard.

Just out of the oven, things are firmer now.

Before You Squeeze Those Limes:

Before you start squeezing those limes, there are a couple of steps you should take. First, wash them, because no one wants any nasty bacteria in their pie. Then dry them off, and use a Microplane rasp tool to zest all that lovely, vivid green off. There is beautiful fresh lime essential oil in that green stuff, that packs a wallop of lime flavor. Even more flavor than the juice, itself, from what I’ve read.

But don’t zest the white stuff under the green stuff, (which is called the pith), because it’s not so much limey in flavor as it is bitter. And you don’t want that for this recipe.

Look at my little mountain of freshly grated lime zest.

Most of the zest goes into the custard of your pie, but you can hold some back and use it to decorate your just baked pie.

Key Lime Pie decorated with squirts of fresh whipped cream.

But don’t squirt the whipped cream on until just before serving. It wants to dissolve pretty quickly, once it’s squirted. Wouldn’t this Key Lime Pie with shortbread crust make a great dessert for your family and friends?

A slice of Key Lime pie with shortbread crust.

See that little uneven creamy spot on the left? Doesn’t that need an index finger swipe to even things out? And then…of course, you’d need to clean off that luscious sweet creamy tanginess off of your finger, onto your tongue, wouldn’t you?

The Recipe for Key Lime Pie with Shortbread Crust:

Yield: 8 slices