Pucker up!

The August issue of Southern Living arrived about a month ago and, ever since, has been staring up at me from the top of the magazine stack on our family room coffee table. Or, perhaps more accurately, I have been staring down at it, because I cannot seem to take my eyes off of the luscious looking lemon pie featured on the cover.

Inside the magazine are actually two recipes for chilled lemon pie, one for a pie made from scratch and the other for a shortcut, no-bake version, both of which sound delicious. After drooling for days over the thought of a creamy and tart citrus filling in a sweetened graham cracker crust with a whipped cream topping, I finally decided last week that we simply had to have one of those pies, or something close to it. We had a get together planned with friends for Tuesday evening, and that seemed like the perfect excuse to make a dessert during the week.

Because our fridge already contained a couple fresh limes and a large bottle of lime juice, my next thought was that our pie would be a lime one, instead of lemon. Then, after reviewing the list of ingredients and reading that one of the pies had a cheesecake-like texture, I suddenly could not get the idea of cheesecake out of my head. I also began thinking about a fabulous piece of Key lime cheesecake that Scott and I had wolfed down a couple years back at the Cheesecake Factory. From there, it seemed rather obvious that what I really needed to make was a lime cheesecake.

I lacked a recipe for such a thing, but did possess my mother's tried and true recipe for regular cheesecake, which I hoped could be tweaked to result in the lime-flavored concoction I desired. After a quick trip to the store to gather the necessary ingredients, I set about attempting to create a new dessert. I followed the cheesecake recipe I had made so many times before, but substituted a healthy dose of lime juice for the small amount of lemon juice specified in the original recipe, and then also dribbled a little food coloring into the batter to achieve a pale green tint.

Sadly, once the cheesecake came out of the oven, it looked less than impressive. The center had fallen, the crust had cracked, and the color was a bit uneven.


However, a nice thick coat of whipped topping and a little lime garnish helped hide the cake's cosmetic flaws (and, thankfully, I was serving it to very, very dear friends - friends of the sort whom would never judge one by their culinary disasters, of which there have been more than a couple over the decades of our friendship).


When we dug into the cheesecake the following evening, it turned out that the new recipe was an overall success. The lime flavor was perhaps a tad too pronounced, and I have scaled back the quantity of lime juice in the recipe below. Upon making that small adjustment, this recipe should yield a truly wonderful cheesecake, with the slightly tart flavor of the creamy filling providing a deliciously balanced contrast to the sweet graham cracker crust and whipped cream topping.

That's the good news. The bad news is, lime cheesecake notwithstanding, I still cannot get those Southern Living lemon pies out of my mind.

Lime Cheesecake

1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup sugar

Combine melted butter, crumbs and sugar, and then pat firmly into the bottom and up the sides of a 10-inch springform pan.

16 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temp
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
green food coloring, if desired

2 to 3 cups sweetened whipped cream or whipped topping

Beat together the cream cheese, condensed milk, eggs, lime juice, and salt. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring until batter is a very pale green. Pour mixture into the prepared crust. Bake 45-50 minutes at 300 degrees, or until the cake springs back when touched. Cool to room temperature and remove from pan. Chill cake. Prior to serving, spread top of cake with sweetened whipped cream or whipped topping, garnish as desired.