As Thanksgiving approaches, many cooks will be reaching for a can with miraculous custard-making powers: evaporated (i.e. condensed) milk. Yes, technically, pumpkin pie is a sweet custard – pumpkin and sugar cooked with the thickening custard duo of egg and milk or cream. In most cases, the milk is evaporated milk. Condensed milk.
A lot of custard-based pies begin with the pairing of condensed milk and eggs yolks: banana cream pies, chocolate cream pies, coconut cream pies. Some cream pies have whipped cream folded into the cooked custard to fluff-up the pie – sometimes additional thickening is obtained through the addition of cornstarch – but the pie base itself for pies like these is usually a flavored custard – and the custard, more often than not, gets its milk from a can. Modern key-lime pies usually have a base that is some variation on a theme of a condensed milk and egg custard. Custard-based pies made from condensed milk are a staple of diners everywhere.
Well condensed milk, more specifically sweetened condensed milk, can also be thickened without all that pesky cooking by adding something acidic like lemon or pineapple. That’s the magic I want to address in this post today – making a traditional lemon condensed milk icebox (no-cook) pie.
Most people use a store-bought ready-made graham cracker crust for these pies – without the added obligation of making your own crust, even a total kitchen novice can make one of these pies in just a few minutes. But I hate store-bought crusts in general – and I hate all graham cracker crusts specifically. Personally, I don’t think the taste of graham crackers pairs well with anything – except, perhaps, in S’Mores. I won’t even eat a cheesecake with a graham cracker crust.
Fortunately, it is easy enough to make tasty crumb crusts while still maintaining an approach to this pie that is virtually foolproof.
Step 1 – Make your own crust.
So…I hate graham cracker crusts. What I DO like is a mildly sweet cookie crust – specifically a crust made from vanilla wafers or from animal cookies. Lately I’ve been using some of each.
Making your own crust gives you a lot of power over your pie – flavor, thickness, final pie size. I’m a deep-dish pie kinda guy here – no little skinny pies allowed in my house, OK.
The recipe for a cookie crumb pie crust is simple – crush cookies in a food processor with a little bit of sugar – pour in some melted butter – press the buttery crumbs into a pie pan – then bake at 350° F for 12-15 minutes. That’s it.
The amount of cookies I start with depends on how much crust I want – usually 5 oz. or 6 oz. of cookies is about right for a pie. I go with roughly 40% of my cookie weight in butter that has been melted. Sugar? Just a little bit – like 2 – 4 tablespoons. Think about it more as a guideline than a recipe. Stay away from recipes that try to quantify amounts of cookie crumbs in cups – just weigh-out your cookies and there is no waste and the results will be consistent even if your crumbs vary a bit in size from time-to-time.
Knowing the right proportion of cookie to butter opens the doorway to infinite variations. Even my despised graham crackers will organize into a crust with this approach. As will de-creamed Oreo wafers if you’re looking for a chocolate crust. Ginger Snaps? Oh yeah. Almost any fundamentally dry cookie will work here – the only cookie that has ever failed to make a useful crust for me has been Pepperidge Farms Bordeaux Cookies (they solidified into a concrete slab).
Starting out with 6 oz. of cookies – for this pie, I used equal parts cheap vanilla wafers and cheap animal cookies.
Ground to crumbs in my food processor. For this batch I added 2 Tbsp. sugar to the bowl a pulsed a couple more times.
So now I have sweetened cookie crumbs.
2.5 oz. (5 Tbsp.) butter that I melted in the microwave.
Note – 2.5 oz. is a little more than 40% of the 6 oz. cookie weight. If I had used 5 oz. of cookies, I would have gone with 2 oz. (4 Tbsp.) of butter – that would have been exactly 40% of the cookie weight. Remember to shoot for roughly 40% of your cookie weight in butter.
For 6 oz. of cookie crumbs, I pour in 2.5 oz. (5 Tbsp.) of melted butter while the processor is running.
Buttery sweetened cookie crumbs – they should look moistened by the butter – they should not look wet.
Dump into your pie pan. My 6 oz. of cookie crumbs is just right for a nice deep-dish pie.
Note – There is a prevailing attitude in making crumb pie crusts like this that the butter in the mix somehow guarantees a flawless release of crust from pan when cutting the pie. For me, this has not always been borne out in reality – sometimes even the slightest attraction between cookie and pan can generate an unsightly snag. I ALWAYS coat my pie pan with a tiny bit of butter to establish a slick barrier over the entire surface of the pan. When I say I use a “tiny” bit, I’d say that means I use less than 1/8 Tbsp. Just a little bit of butter can save a lot of heartache. Professionals say you never need to take this little extra step. I ALWAYS take this little extra step. My stoneware pie pan in the picture above has a thin coating of butter protecting it from all those crumbs. You can’t see it, but it’s there.
Using a flat-bottomed glass to press the buttered crumbs along the bottom of the pan.
Pressing the crumbs firmly with my fingers along the sides of the pan.
Baked at 350° F for 12 – 15 minutes – until you can see the empty crust start to tan a little bit. Whenever you can smell the crust cooking throughout the kitchen, it should be about done. Cool before filling.
Step 2 – Whip-up some easy pie filling.
The pie crust was the hard part. The ingredients and technique for this pie filling are so simple, but they produce a fantastic dessert. The structure of the pie is reminiscent of cheesecake – a little denser. The aroma and taste of fresh lemon make it very refreshing.
The filling is just a can of sweetened condensed milk, a package of cream cheese, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice, and some lemon zest. There are a couple details of technique to observe, but time-wise and ingredient-wise, you just can’t ask for anything simpler.
In the bowl of my stand mixer: 1 can (14 oz.) of sweetened condensed milk, 1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. This needs to sit long enough for the cream cheese to soften – I give it 45 minutes to an hour.
Prepared separately: fine zest of one lemon and about 1/2 cup of lemon juice. I squeeze half lemons until I get a full 1/2 cup or a little more – in this case, it took 5 halves (2 1/2 lemons).
Before adding the acidic lemon, make sure to whip the cream cheese mixture until all lumps of cream cheese are gone – the mixture should be smooth.
Add the lemon and the zest and mix for about a minute – the mixture will begin to congeal as soon as the lemon is added. I poured my lemon juice through a mesh strainer to remove any seeds or pith.
That’s it – pour the thickening mix into your cookie crumb pie crust and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
LOOK at this thing. Creamy cheesecake-y consistency with a refreshing lemon aroma and taste.
Concluding Thoughts – Baking time aside, the crust takes roughly 7-10 minutes to prepare. Get your cream cheese out before you start and you’ll be about 1/2 hour into the softening process when the crust comes out of the oven to cool. By the time the crust has cooled, the cream cheese will have softened. The pie filling only takes about 5 minutes from start-to-finish.
Recent Comments