Summer Fruit Key-Lime Pie

I have mentioned before how much I love key-lime juice and key-lime pie. I love being able to buy key-lime juice from Nellie & Joe’s just about anywhere. (No, Nellie and Joe didn’t pay me or give me anything to say that. It’s the plain truth.)

I had a request for key-lime pie a couple of weeks ago. I also had a whole bunch of lovely fresh fruit in the house, including gorgeous tiny blueberries and the first peaches of the season. So I decided to add a little local fruit to my key-lime creation.

The result was an incredibly easy to make (and easy to eat) melding of north and south, sweet and tart.

My camera is broken, but luckily one of my guests, Alison Seaton, brought along her IPhone and took a photo of the pie before it disappeared completely.

Ingredients:

for the fruit layer:

2 cups mixed fruit (peaches and blueberries … or peaches and blueberries and raspberries!)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons key-lime juice
1/1-2 teaspoons cornstarch

for the key-lime layer:

1/2 cup key-lime juice
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks

for assembly:

1 uncooked 8- or 9-inch graham cracker crust (I made this from scratch, but store bought will do in a pinch)

for presentation:

whipped cream to taste (optional but good)

Instructions:

This recipe is best prepared several hours in advance.

Combine the fruit, sugar, and 2 tablespoons key-lime juice in a nonreactive saucepan. If you have time, let them sit for half an hour or so. Otherwise, forge ahead!

Stir in the cornstarch. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and set it aside to cool. When it is at room temperature, cover and refrigerate the fruit mixture.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl whisk together the ingredients for the key-lime layer. Pour them into the pie crust.

Bake the pie for 20 minutes. Remove it from the oven, and let it cool to room temperature; then cover it and place it in the freezer.

About an hour before you are ready to serve your pie, pour the fruit layer on top of the key-lime layer and put the whole thing in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it.

Serve with whipped cream as desired. Serves 6.