True story: I’ve never had Key Lime Pie. And so, adding to a tradition of baking things that I think sound nice but have no idea how they taste because I’ve never made one, I figured: why not ? Because really, how hard can it be? It turns out, not hard at all! This sugar free Key Lime Pie is ridiculously easy to make, and is so healthy that it contains spinach. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me: SPINACH
So are you ready? Then LET’S WALK THE LIME.
Method
For the base
Preheat your oven to 120°c fan (140°c no fan, 280°f). Sift 140 g plain flour into a bowl and add 120 g rolled oats , 60 g xylitol , 1 tsp ground cinnamon and 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda , then stir together thoroughly with a metal spoon or a knife.
Cube 140 g butter into a small Pyrex/microwave-safe dish (I prefer this 250ml Pyrex jug ) and add 4 tsps sugar-free maple syrup , then microwave for 20-30 seconds until the butter has melted, stirring together to melt away any last lumps.
Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir together with a metal spoon or knife, making sure everything is thoroughly combined and there are no lumps of dry flour left in your mixture.
Place your mixed dough into a 23cm/9″ loose-bottomed pie dish (something like this one is perfect), pressing the mixture down flat into the dish and using your fingers to pull it up the sides. Once the bottom and sides are even, pour baking beads (or, if you don’t have any available, just use some dry penne pasta) into your pie crust. This will help keep it level as it bakes.
Place your pie dish in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, checking after 15. You may find that it has risen, particularly around the edges, and doesn’t look very pie-base like, but don’t worry – this is absolutely fine: take the dish out of the oven and, after leaving it a minute to cool a little, use the base of a small ramekin or drinking glass to flatten down any particularly raised parts of the base and even out the sides. Now turn your oven up to 160°c fan (180°c no fan, 350°f) and put the pie dish back in for another 6-8 minutes, then take out and set aside.
For the filling
First, zest two of the limes your about to squeeze and set it aside. Next, squeeze out 190 ml lime juice – 190ml is approximately 3 limes. Pour the juice and any pulp from the limes into a pan (a small milk pan like this is ideal ) along with 6 large egg yolks(s) and 45 g xylitol and whisk together.
Put the pan on a low (low! ) heat and add 120 g softened butter in cubes, stirring as you do. Once the butter has melted, turn the heat up to medium and stir continuously. You should find your curd thickens up pretty quickly – usually only in a couple of minutes. Once it is nice and thick, taken the pan off the heat and set to one side. You’ll want to keep an eye on it, stirring it every few minutes just to ensure there are no huge lumps. The consistency should be very thick – if you dip your finger in and the curd doesn’t fill up the hole your finger made, then it’s perfect.
In a separate pan, add 20 g spinach and 125 ml water – the water should just come up to the same level as the spinach leaves. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat to low and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Once done, taken the pan off the heat and leave to cool.
Once the spinach-water has cooled a little, pour it into a small blender (I use the tiny little Ninja Master Prep ) along with half of the zest you made earlier (so, the zest of one lime) and 0.125 tsp stevia , then blitz together until smooth.
Add 8-12 teaspoons of your super-green spinach water to your lime curd and stir in thoroughly (I promise it won’t taste like spinach – go ahead, try it!) – all this does is add a little hint of green to your otherwise pretty yellow lime curd. You don’t want to add so much that it thins out – if you want it to be SUPER GREEN , then maybe try some artificial green food colouring instead (but why would you when you’ve got SPINACH WATER?).
Once both the curd filling and the biscuit base are reasonably cool, pour the filling into the pie dish, smoothing over with a silicon spatula, then put back in the oven (still set at 160°c fan/180°c no fan/350°f) for 15 minutes. Once baked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for 20-30 minutes. Once cooled enough, put in the fridge for at least 3 hours before serving.
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And you’re all done! And you even learned how to use spinach in a dessert. Don’t never say I don’t learn you nothin’.
Nutritional Info
Total Carbohydrates
24.9g
*Typical values per serving.
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