We Knew This Would Happen One Day...

...we basically tied. Yup. Tied. The score was down to the hudredths of a point. Sugar's Southern Joy Pie came in with a 3.93, and Salt's Creamy Goodness Key Lime Pie For Lazy People came in at 3.87. Super close, so we are calling this week's throwdown a TIE!!

So, since there is no loser this week (or any other week for that matter) we have decided to each choose one item and use one of the desserts offered up last week for this week's poll. So, without further ado, get your voting mouses ready because this week's choices are:

SNICKERDOODLE COOKIES
GINGERBREAD CAKE
LEMON BARS

Voting is open from now until next Friday at 12:00 noon when we post the results. Stay tuned and have a great weekend!

I Wish I Had Bought The Jack Lalane Juicer from that Infomercial

I soo should have posted this yesterday, but a little thing called Monday Night Football was on and completely distracted me from my blog post. So, sorry for the delay, but here is my recipe for Key Lime Pie.

This pie was a near disaster (it seems I'm having a few of those lately). I started off making a recipe from Southern Living, which called for 1 cup of freshly squeezed Key Lime Pie. So, I bought a bag of key limes and began squeezing. The recipe says 25 minutes of prep time - I would like to call BS on that. After 1 hour of squeezing and grating rinds, I barely reached 3/4 cup with a bag of 20-some key limes. Uh oh.... So, I opened up the classic Joy of Cooking cookbook which, thankfully, only called for 1/2 cup of key lime juice but used 1 tablespoon of grated key lime rind. I ended up blending these two recipes to create the recipe below. I hope it worked, I ate it for breakfast and liked it.

I also just love how each week Salt and I have come up with completely different recipes. It's so cool seeing how each of us chooses recipes each week and the key lime throwdown is no different. LOVE IT!

PS - Do not put foil over meringue, apparently it can cause the meringue to disappear where it touches the foil, thus causing your pie to look like a cake wreck.

Sugar's Southern Joy Key Lime Pie

Yield: 1 9" Pie

Prep Time: 1 hour (for squeezing juice), 25 minutes for the rest, 28 minutes cook, and 8 hours to chill

Ingredients:

Pie Crust:
1.25 cups of graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

Filling:
2 (14 oz.) cans of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. fresh key lime juice
1 tbsp. grated key lime rind
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1/4 tsp. salt

Meringue:
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 tbsp. sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Combine the graham cracker crumbs, butter, and sugar in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Press into a 9" pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes.
2. Remove the crust from the oven and allow it to cool.
3. Combine sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, rind, and egg yolk in another bowl and stir until well combined. Pour into the pie crust.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Beat for about 4 minutes on high speed.
5. Spread the meringue overtop of the pie and filling.
6. Bake at 350 for 28 minutes.
7. Allow the pie to cool off a bit, then chill for 8 hours.
8. Eat for breakfast.

XOXO,

Do you love Key Lime Pie? How about free time?

Wow I can't believe I am the first to post today! Everything about Key Lime Pie week has been as easy as...pie. I was hoping we would eventually get to make it because I have the quickest recipe ever to share with you guys. It required no research because my mom and I have been making it ever since she asked her friend that worked at this one restaurant how they made the key lime pie that she so loved to eat there and he told her. And we laughed because it was so ridonkulously simple.

I have made it for countless parties and it's always a hit. Even with people who don't really like key lime pie.

The best part? If you're feeling super lazy, you don't even need to turn on the oven. The only reason I had to yesterday was to make the crust because the rules here include no buying pre-made.

Salt's Key Lime Pie for Lazy People

From Salt's personal recipe vault.

Yield: 1 pie. Duh.

Ingredients:

1 12oz container of Cool Whip from the freezer section (Sorry there are some things that I am not going to do from scratch and whipping cream is one of them.)

1 can of condensed milk

Concentrated Limeaid

And if you are making your own pie crust you will need:

1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs

2 tbsp granulated sugar

6 tbsp melted butter

Then you combine all these things in a bowl and press into the bottom of a pie pan. Then bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Or you could just buy a pre-made crust.

For the pie filling...combine the whipped cream and condensed milk in a bowl. Add Limeaid to taste. I always like this part because you can make it as limey as you would ever want it to be (I prefer a little less limey). Pour in pie crust. Cover and stick it in the freezer to set for like 8 hours.

The end.

Seriously. It is the easiest dessert ever. Personally, I like to make mine with low fat whipped cream and reduced fat condensed milk so that I feel less guilty eating it. Then I have to stop myself from eating the whole pie in one sitting because it is just that good.

Or at least I think it is. Time to let the taste testers decide.

The polls are closed...

...and the winner for this week's bake-off is...

KEY LIME PIE!

Just in time for the end of the summer! Sugar's husband is going to be thrilled.

Thanks so much to everyone that voted! I'm off to figure out the best way to make a graham cracker pie crust. The last time I made one, I had a massive fail. (This is Salt posting BTW.)

Stay tuned for our creations on Monday!

Red Velvet Cupcakes - The RESULTS!

It's results time again!

Sugar's Cupcakes:

Salt's Cupcakes:

After the fiasco that was my meringues, I needed a win to make me feel better about myself! I highly recommend the recipe I used to anyone that loves red velvet. I just received word from one of our taste testers that the cupcakes are still fabulous all these days later as long as you keep them in the fridge!

Yep. We are still eating them over here.

So because I won this week, Sugar has picked out the next three things that our lovely readers can vote on.

Will it be:

1. Key Lime Pie (Yes, again...apparently Sugar's husband is a HUGE fan.)
2. Apple Pie
3. Lemon Bars

A poll will be appearing in the side bar as soon as I can figure out how to make one. Or maybe I will just have to beg Sugar to do it for me because she's already a Blogger poll expert. :)

HAPPY VOTING and we hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We will announce the results of the poll at the end of next week and get back to baking after the holiday is over.