Quite Curious

Martha gets it right sometimes. She made lime squares with pistachio graham cracker crust. Lime squares. Pistachio graham cracker crust. Genius.

This is what I think happens when a key lime pie and a lemon bar gets married - they make lime square babies. It’s creamy and tangy like key lime pie, but has the thick, crunchy crust from a lemon bar. It’s simple to make, delicious, and incredibly refreshing. Martha, I have to hand it to you. This really is a “good thing”.

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Recipe from Martha Stewart »

What you’ll need

Ok, let’s get started. Eggs…check, condensed milk…check, limes…yup. Simplest filling ever. By the way, I never ended up using this many limes. I had some left over from making mojitos the other day. Surprisingly, I only used three limes for this recipe.

Condensed milk, how I love you. I try to stay away from you as much as I can, but you just keep coming back. I rarely see American recipes using condensed milk, I see it more in Asian and Hispanic recipes. Either way, it is always so good.

So, I was really dumb. For some reason, I thought I was making some kind of cake or pie, not bars. So I made the whole thing in a springform pan. ::smacks forehead:: When I make this again, I’m going to use a regular 8×8 inch glass pan.

Oh well. I’m including these photos anyway to show how I line a round pan with parchment paper. I basically cut out a square the size of the pan, fold it up into a triangle, place the tip of the triangle in the center of the pan, and cut a round edge where the pan ends. It always works (thanks, Alton Brown).

Spraying the pan with some non stick spray…

…so the parchment paper sticks to the bottom.

Making the crust

Hey guys, is it just me or were graham crackers bigger? Weren’t they square before? Leave a comment if you know.

Making 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs.

Pistachio crumbs smell so good! I was really hoping the green color would stay after baking the crust but unfortunately it didn’t.

A naked lime. Mike thinks it’s cute how I always have a naked lime or lemon on the top shelf of the refrigerator. I almost use zest more than actual juice.

1 tablespoon of lime zest going into the rest of the crust ingredients.

Pouring the crumb ingredients into the pan to get pressed and baked.

Making the filling

Mrmmm, condensed milk.

Squeezing the life out of these limes. I only used three!

Pouring the filling into a cooled crust.

Time to eat

And it’s done! Half of the bar is a nice, thick crust, the other half is a creamy, tangy lime cream. Enjoy!

See all photos here »
Recipe from Martha Stewart »