Key lime bars
Recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated, a subscription website.
Crust
- 5 oz animal crackers
- 3 T packed brown sugar
- pinch of salt
- 4 T melted butter
Filling
- 1 T grated lime zest, chopped fine (about 1 persian lime)
- 2 oz cream cheese, at room temp.
- 1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 egg yolk
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup lime juice (about 3 persian limes)
Garnish (optional)
- 3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut, toasted until golden and crisp
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line an 8x8 baking pan with foil, leaving at least one inch of excess foil hanging over the edges to use as handles for later removal. and either butter the foil, or coat with cooking spray. Spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.
2. MAKE THE CRUST -- In workbowl of food processor, pulse animal crackers until broken down; process crumbs until evenly fine, about 10 seconds (you should have about 1 1/4 cups crumbs). Add brown sugar and salt; process to combine. Drizzle butter over crumbs and pulse until crumbs are evenly moistened with butter, about ten 1-second pulses. Press crumbs evenly and firmly into bottom of prepared pan; you can use the bottom of a glass or any sturdy, flat-bottomed item to do this. Bake until deep golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack while making filling. Do not turn off oven.
3. MAKE THE FILLING -- While crust cools, in medium bowl, stir cream cheese, zest, and salt with rubber spatula or a wooden spoon until softened, creamy, and thoroughly combined. Add sweetened condensed milk and whisk vigorously until incorporated and no lumps of cream cheese remain; whisk in egg yolk. Add lime juice and whisk gently until incorporated (mixture will thicken slightly).
4. ASSEMBLE AND BAKE -- Pour filling into crust; spread to corners and smooth surface with rubber spatula. Bake until set and edges begin to pull away slightly from sides, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack to room temperature, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Cover with foil and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least 2 hours.
5. Loosen edges with paring knife and lift bars from baking pan using foil extensions; cut bars into 16 squares. Sprinkle with toasted coconut, if using, and serve. (Leftovers can be refrigerated up to 2 days; crust will soften slightly. Let bars stand at room temperature about 15 minutes before serving.)
Notes
- Crust
- Animal crackers -- Because I wanted to get rid of them, I used a 1.5 oz package of Lorna Doones. I also used Paul Newman's arrowroot alphabet cookies for the remaining 3.5 oz of cookies called for in the recipe. In addition, I toasted about 1/2 cup of macadamias and ground that into the crust ingredients as well. Because I assumed these cookies would be sweeter than animal crackers, I cut the sugar in half.
- Pan -- Because I don't currently have an 8x8 square pan, I used an 11-cup capacity, 9x7x2 Pyrex storage dish. The crust is thus thicker than it would have been otherwise, but hopefully, this will make it sturdier base when picking up the bars to eat them.
- Food processor -- The process of pulsing first before processing ensures that you end up with evenly fine crumbs. If you just start with a steady processing from the get-go, you will end up with a mixture of very fine and very coarse crumbs.
- Filling
- Cream cheese -- I dislike condensed milk as a general rule and thought that with only two ounces of cream cheese, the filling would be sickly sweet. Because I also happen to love key lime cheesecake, I decided to double the cream cheese to four ounces.
- Zest -- I also did not have organic limes, so I used a 1/2 teaspoon of Boyajian lime oil. Although citrus oil has the flavor of zest, you lose out on the texture. We happened to have a mix of dried zest from homegrown lemons and limes, so I crushed several pinches into the filling and let it steep to rehydrate for about 5 mins before adding the lime juice.
- Lime juice -- You can substitute persian limes for key limes.
