Sweet and Tart Lime Meringue Pie

I think the fact that I’ve made this pie for two of my own birthdays in a row says something about how much I like it. As a lover of everything sour and having a huge sweet-tooth, this one hits all the right spots for me.

I’ve always been on the hunt for a great lemon or lime meringue pie, but usually I find them to be too sweet but my liking, so the only way to make it sour enough was to bake it myself.

This makes one 23 cm // 9 inch pie.

Ingredients

250 g // 8.8 oz crackers (ideally, digestives or graham crackers)
100 g // ½ cup butter
1 tbsp white sugar
397 g // 1 small can condensed milk
200 g // ¾ cup sour cream
4-5 limes (roughly 150 ml // 5 oz lime juice)
2-3 tsp lime zest
3 eggs, yolks and whites separate
150 g // ¾ cup white sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 175 C // 350 F degrees.
To make the base, crush the crackers in a blender until you get fine crumbs and then incorporate melted butter and 1 tbsp of sugar. Press the crumb mixture into the cake tin/pie pan making sure you push it up to the sides as well.
In a medium bowl, combine condensed milk, sour cream, lime zest, juice of limes, eggs yolks. Pour this into the pie crust and bake for 20-25 minutes.
In the meantime, make the soft meringue frosting. In a large bowl over saucepan of boiling water, stir egg whites and sugar until the sugar has melted (approximately 8 minutes). Take the bowl off the heat and with a mixer whip the eggs to stiff peaks.
Once the pie has finished baking, let it cool slightly before adding the meringue on top. I like to arrange it basically covering the whole middle part of the pie but leaving a bit of the outer circle exposed.
If you have a blow torch, this is the perfect opportunity to put it to use. Burn spots of the meringue to make it look extra delicious. Otherwise, put the cake back in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the meringue starts to brown.
Let the cake cool and put it in the fridge for at least a few hours (even overnight if you can) before serving.