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If anyone wants to try making it, buy "Nellie & Joe's Key Lime Juice" in a yellow plastic bottle with a green cap at many grocery stores in the aisle near lemon juice. The recipe is on the label. and it's really quick and easy. (Two egg yolks, two cans of sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, pie crust.)
I prefer key lime pie to apple pie because most apple pies, and most apple desserts in general, are way too sweet for my taste. I find things that are cloyingly sweet revolting. Pecan pie with that corn syrup base is even worse.
I have made an apple pie with tart Granny Smith apples before and it was delicious. A little whipped cream or real vanilla bean ice cream on that and it balances out perfectly.
I prefer KLP to apple. I have a friend who makes awesome pies. I only eat home-made pies, the ones from stores or even some restaurants have that soggy, goopy, bottom crust. Yuk. Plus a lot of commercial fruit pies like apple, the fruit pieces are almost lost in the rest of the filling.
Not sure how the facts that OP likes key lime pie and it's something you can order in restaurants makes it 'America's favorite pie'.
I suspect key lime pie is a summer seasonal thing to some extent because of its association with Florida and the tropics and the general association of tart, fresh flavors with summer. I'd say it's much less common as a dessert around fall and into the holiday season.
The strength of apple pie is that it's an all-year dessert that can be had at a 4th of July celebration, on Thanksgiving as well as Christmas without causing any dissonance. Pies like pecan and pumpkin are holiday favorites not too commonly seen in spring and summer while fruit pies like cherry or peach are associated with those fruits being in season in summer, too. Apples meanwhile are readily available year-round and the pie does not stand out as specific to an occasion or season.
Most people don't make an authentic Key lime pie. The recipe is quite simple with few ingredients. But there are a few tricks to producing a nice looking, suitable product.
The problem is geographical. Quality fresh Key limes. The last one I made was a year ago. I bought a whole bag of them and there wasn't enough juice in the lot to make the pie. That's even after I gave them a little warm up in the microwave.
I "made do" with part of a can of frozen limeade I had in the freezer but it turned the pie green - a dead giveaway of mongrelism.
I always make mine with a crust of gingersnaps which is also not kosher but it seems to hold up better if the pie will be around for a couple of days.
I don't like graham cracker crust. That said, I have had decent key lime fillings and lousy ones. I have had great apple pie (never at a restaurant or store bought) and lousy apple pie.
I see key lime, or lemon pies, as more of a summer dessert. Places like Florida probably year round. Not that any pie is a healthy choice, but when considering the ingredients....KLP is a sugar bomb.
As for restaurants making their own pies, not usually. Most just buy them frozen. Some manufacturers are better than others.
I think so few people actually make their own pies anymore that standards are lower.
I like KLP, but apple pie is more of a comfort food, & I don't see it being usurped.
I just thought it was interesting that kids brought up out West would even know about key lime pie, which I think of as Southern and Eastern.
And they make it themselves meaning access to key lime juice in western grocery stores.
DIL said they have a Trader Joe's near them, possibly they stock key lime juice in bottles.
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