Friday, September 16, 2011

Magic No-Bake Lemon Cracker Pie


Living in Lahore-Pakistan means getting use to the 10 months of sun. This translates into "a looong hot summer". Now if your anything like me, then you just have to have something sweet after a meal and in hot weather it has to be light ,cool and refreshing! But.....you also want to avoid toiling long hours over the stove. Sounds Familiar?

How many of you think anything "LEMONY" as a perfect summer dessert? Yes? Really? Ok now your my kinda person!

I love food and I love all the new food blogs popping up everyday. The best thing about these food blogs are that they usually mention recipes that the blogger has ACTUALLY tried themselves and then they also give tips and variations to take it up to the next level of delight-fullness.

In my search for a nice cool lemony dessert I stumbled upon a super awesome blog called Serious Eats. This has now become one of my favorite blogs. On this blog, I found a recipe for a 10 minute no-bake Lime Cracker pie. I searched some more and found the same recipe tried by The Cookie Scoop blog. This recipe was explained better on the second blog as it had step by step photos to take us through the stages visually. I love anything that has a lot of visual representation.

So now its my turn. Im now posting my version of the recipe with photos taken by yours truly :)

The photos may not at all be up to the mark as I have seen on many other blogs. Reason being that I just started taking food pics a few days ago and am at the beginners level . I had no idea its so technical but through trial and error I might be able to take a few good ones. So do cut me some slack till then :(

Another thing I must mention before posting the recipe is that the original recipe requires a few products that are not available here. I have visited some of the top food stores here and cant find Key limes anywhere. So I swapped them with lemons. The lemons here are really good. They are not as large as the ones you find in the US but just as good.

Then there are the imported items that are only available in very few stores in the top metropolitan cities like RITZ crackers, Borden Condensed milk etc. So Im giving you the local substitutes that I used and the result was just as tasty!


No-Bake Lemon Cracker Pie:
This is a lemony, salty, sweet dessert that requires just 4 ingredients!

29 Saltish Crackers (approx one box or two half sized pouches)
One Cup Cream (250 grams approx)
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
One 14oz tin Condensed Milk
1tsp Lemon rind

Step One: Empty the contents on the condensed milk tin into a bowl. Now mix in the heavy cream and stir till combined.

Step Two: Add lemon juice to the cream mixture and stir/ whisk swiftly. You will see that the mixture suddenly thickens up into a custard like consistency. That means your doing good. Keep going.. Almost done ;)

Step Three: Take a pie dish or what ever you prefer to serve it in. I used a square glass dish that is about 5-6inches. Now spread a layer of this lemony custard on the bottom of the dish and place a layer of the crackers on it , then again pour custard on it and continue layering.


The last layer must be the custard. Then top your pie with some kind of decoration. Those making the Lime pie can grate some peel on top to make it look pretty. But I used lemons so I improvised by decorating it with lemon slices. I know.. I know... I need to work on my food styling.


Now put it in the fridge overnight or at least 7-8 hours if you want it to set right. If you take it out any sooner then you will have round crackers running around in loose pudding. Believe me...As the impatient person I am, I took it out after 2 hours and ummm ...it wasn't quite a pie, but still super yummy!

Variations:

  • Now if you don't like the sweet and salty combo you can easily replace the crackers with graham crackers, wheat cookies or better yet MARIE cookies. It will give you an even better pie taste.
  • Also this custard can be mixed with other fruits too like bananas or mangoes or even fruit fillings.
  • Instead of lemon juice you can use orange juice and gingersnaps in place of the crackers.
Use your imagination and the combinations are endless!! Will be awaiting your feedback!

1 comments:

Kelly | Eat Yourself Skinny said...

Wow what a great recipe, this looks delicious! Love your blog, so glad to be a new follower! xoxo

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