TWD--Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie--With MY Twist (And You'll Never Guess What It Is)

I hummed and hawed about making this week's TWD pick-Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie, chosen by Linda from Tender Crumb.  I just wasn't feeling like getting it done.  But the great program that is Tuesday's With Dorie got the best of me and on Monday I decided to just do it. 

I am happy to say that the cream came together for me easily.  I was a little worried about whisking, whisking, whisking to get the cream to thicken.  Here's a few things about the recipe--the three limes I zested produced about 2 1/2 tablespoons of zest, which seemed like a lot, so I only used about 1  1/2 tablespoons of it.  Then I juiced 6 limes and only got about 1/2 cup of juice.  I was torn about that--make another trip to the store, use some lime concentrate or just call it good with the 1/2 cup.  I went with the latter and just used 1/2 cup of lime juice.  I'm glad I did, it was PLENTY lime-y!  I did use the fresh ginger and got a good teaspoon/teaspoon and a half from grating about one inch of ginger.   And then there's the case of the butter.  Whoa--a lot of butter.  I'd read on the P&Q's that some were using less butter still with success.  But I didn't know how much less.  So I took a chance and went ahead and only used 1 stick (instead of 2 1/2!) of butter.   Some "complained" about how long it took the cream to come to temperature and thicken over the double boiler.  Mine took 9-10 minutes (just as Dorie said it should) and I was very happy about that.  My arms were killing me so I'm very glad it didn't take longer!

See--creamy--this is after it had been in the fridge for about two hours.

I tasted it and realized (again, I've realized it before) that I just don't LOVE eggy type custards/creams.  And this tasted eggy to me--and very lime-y.  It was at this point that I decided to take a stand for myself (kidding!).  But I decided at that point to not make a lime cream meringue pie.  I also knew that the boys probably wouldn't like the pie and Kevin would probably just eat a courtesy piece--he just doesn't love eating really sweet things.  (I know, I know--how in the world did we get together? ;) 

Anyway, I did what only I could/would do--I made lime ice cream!  I took the lime cream and added 1 cup of half and half and 1 cup of whole milk, whisked it all together and poured it into my beloved ice cream maker.  While it was churning, I drizzled in 4 tablespoons of honey.  It just seemed like a good thing to do--honey, lime, ginger ice cream. 

I scream.  It's pretty darn good.  Still, a little too eggy for my liking, but definitely edible.

Back when I was planning to make the pie (okay, moments before I churned), I WAS planning to make a graham cracker crust for the pie.  So I felt it only right to make graham cracker ice cream sandwiches.

And THIS was really good.  The cracker helped cut some of the extreme tartness of the lime.

So I made some for the boys, too.

And just for fun, I wanted to see what it would be like to make a quick graham cracker crust using some graham cereal I have.  So I made just enough to put into two ramekins.  Baked it off briefly, cooled it and filled them with the lime ice cream.  Then I turned it out of the ramekin like a flan.  While it tasted great, the graham cereal was quite crumbly.

I will say this.  I think I've overcome any fear I had for making custard/cream on the stove.  But by skipping the meringue pie, someday I'll still need to get with it and learn the art of making meringue (again, it just turned in to a good excuse not to make it since I don't really care for the eggy taste and airy texture of it.  When I was going to make the graham cracker crust pie, I'd planned to put some whipped cream on each serving instead of the meringue.  Someday I'll do it though.  And thanks, Linda at Tender Crumb for picking a fun, new, challenging recipe.  You can get the recipe on Linda's blog and go check out the other TWD baker's pie creations on the TWD link above.