Glorious Key Lime Pie

My hands down favorite dessert of all time is key lime pie. I *love* it.

I found a recipe that I had to try, from one of my most favorite blogs: Healthy Indulgences 

At first, I was weary. I have tried MANY supposed key lime pie recipes since starting low carb, and never found anything even REMOTELY close to how this tastes. NOTHING. This was to die for good. No funny sweetner taste, no hint of it not being an authentic carb filled dessert. Just silky, smooth, key lime-y goodness on a nut crust that I just so happened to really like (and let me tell you, I do not like nut crusts!).

Here is the recipe. Again, I cannot claim this as my own, but I am posting it here for ease of finding it. :)

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Healthy Key Lime Pie

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

  

For Crust:

• 1 cup blanched almond meal, packed
• 1/2 cup pecan meal, packed
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. NuNaturals pure stevia extract
• 2 tsbp. granular erythritol, powdered
• ½ tsp. xanthan gum
• 3 tbsp. butter, melted
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• 1/8 tsp. salt

 For Filling:

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 7 tbsp. granular erythritol (or other sugar substitute), powdered
• 1/4 plus 1/8 tsp. NuNaturals pure stevia extract
• 1/2 cup key lime juice (the bottled kind works well)
• 1/4 tsp. finely minced lime zest (1/8 tsp. for less tartness)
• 1 packet (2 tsp.) unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup heavy cream

Preparation:

For Crust:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whisk together almond meal, pecan meal, cinnamon, stevia, and xanthan gum together in a bowl. Grind erythritol in a coffee grinder to powder it. Whisk into the above mixture. Stir vanilla and salt into melted butter. Add to dry mixture, and knead together dough with hands until everything is distributed evenly throughout the dough. The color of the dough will look even when its ready. Lightly grease a large glass pie dish with butter. Press dough into dish in the shape of a crust, trying to make sure that the thickness is the same all over the pie dish. Poke holes with a fork all over the crust so to ensure that air pockets don't form while it's baking. Bake crust for 14-15 minutes. Make sure to remove crust from the oven once edges are slightly browned. Check the crust a couple of times while it bakes to see if bubbles form. Should you see air pockets rising under the crust, open the oven door, and gently prick those areas with your fork. Place dish on a cooling rack to cool, and wait at least 2 hours for crust to dry out and reach room temperature. You can cover the crust with plastic wrap, and store it in the refrigerator overnight if you'd like to prepare the filling the next day.

For Filling:

Set cream cheese out on the counter for 2 hours to reach room temperature.

Beat cream cheese with a mixer until smooth and free of lumps. Powder erythritol in coffee grinder. Stir erythritol and 1/4 tsp. stevia into cream cheese, then beat with mixer for 2-3 minutes on high speed to ensure erythritol has dissolved and texture is smooth. Refrigerate mixture while you perform the next step.

Heat key lime juice, covered, in microwave on HIGH for 2 minutes. Add lime zest to hot key lime juice. Whisk gelatin into key lime juice until it has completely dissolved. Let mixture cool for 5-10 minutes, or until no longer hot to the touch. Stir key lime juice mixture into cream cheese mixture. You want the gelatin to start thickening as it cools down. Look for a pudding-like texture as you are stirring the cream cheese mixture around the bowl. If it is not thickening, make an ice bath with another bowl filled with ice and water. Set bowl with cream cheese mixture over the ice bath (making sure water doesn't get into cream cheese mixture!) and stir the cream cheese mixture around bottom of bowl with a spatula. Do this for a couple of minutes until the mixture thickens to a pudding-like consistency and is cool to the touch. Remove bowl with cream cheese mixture from ice bath, and set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat heavy cream and 1/8 tsp. stevia until stiff peaks form. Use spatula to fold a dollop of whipped cream mixture into cream cheese mixture, and stir it around a bit. Fold the rest of the whipped cream into cream cheese mixture until texture is fairly even. Scrape filling into pie crust. Refrigerate pie, uncovered, for 3-4 hours, or until texture is firm enough to cut. Serve topped with whipped cream if desired. Pie will keep at least 3 days refrigerated.

Use the same process to whip cream for garnish as you did above for the filling. Add erythritol, stevia, and vanilla extract to taste. If you don't mind a few extra carbs, you can use a little bit of the canned whipped cream.

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According to my calculations, this should be roughly 6.125g of carbs per slice. And let me say this - this makes 8 LARGE slices of pie. These aren't "diet" sized pieces. These are "I'm going out to eat and I better get a damn big piece of pie for $8" sized slices!

Try this. It will NOT disappoint!