I like key lime pie. I’ve liked it ever since my grandmother introduced me to it at some Easter party years and years and years ago. This was the “Pie Grandma” not the “Cake Grandma”. There was a distinction in our family as to which was which based on what they usually served at dinners. Pie Grandma made her key lime pie with real key limes, e.g. she went to the store, bought a bag of limes, squeezed the juice out, grated the peel, and cut fancy wedges of what was left of the fruit to decorate it.
Let’s just say that my first attempt to recreate this pie did not go well. I assembled all the ingredients, the cracker crust, the cherries, the cream cheese (I think it was cream cheese) and bag of limes. Only….I forgot to read the entire recipe and ended up squeezing the ENTIRE bag of limes into lime juice, which made the entire pie something of a novelty in the “O.O face” department. I haven’t tried to make it since then, but I still love me some key lime pie. Which was why I was interested to see the bakery’s offering the other day of something they called “key lime cupcakes.”
Interesting! They were those little mini cupcakes that you buy to make yourself feel better about not consuming a huge hunk of cake, only you end up eating like, three of them because really, they’re just a BITE of cupcake, and one can never have just a bite of cupcake. They looked good, white cake with key lime colored frosting swirls on the top, with a white star topping that looked like whipped cream. They smelled appropriately lime-y. So I bought them and took them home, happily anticipating key lime cupcake bliss. I mean, hey, if key lime pie is good and cupcakes are good, what could possibly go wrong with this combination?
The first taste of frosting was awesome. Tart, creamy, and just the right amount of sour tang. I then made what turned out to be a fatal mistake - I put the whole mini cupcake into my eager mouth, chomping down into what I thought was going to be the most awesome culinary delight since chocolate lava brownies. I was wrong, oh so very wrong.
The moment the combination of tangy, tart frosting and sweet, sugary cake hit my tongue, my mouth seemed to go into some sort of emergency air lock mode. My jaw locked open. My eyes bulged from their sockets in an attempt to free themselves from my skull and discern for themselves what, exactly, I had put into my mouth. My tongue made a frantic escape attempt, hampered by the fact that I was drooling copiously, slobbering greenish foam down my chin. I staggered around the kitchen, making “Auugh, awwuhh auuff!!” noises and yanking on my hair. (I think I was trying to reason with my tongue while levering my eyeballs back into place, the memory is a bit fuzzy)
At some point I made it to the sink and spat out the remains of the key mutant cup lime cake from hell, and spent the next ten minutes or so gargling with cherry pepsi. I did have fun, however, feeding the rest of the cupcakes to Mr. Garbage Disposal, who is far less picky about what he puts into his mouth. Needless to say, I have been a bit more selective about anything labeled “key lime” that is not actually pie. So imagine my interest and hesitation when I noticed, in the check out counter line yesterday, a pack of Extra Sugar Free Gum labeled “Key Lime Pie”.
As wary as I am of such things, some perverse monkey-demon that lives in my soul started demanding I buy it at once and try it out. Giving in to the monkey-demon is far easier than listening to it whine, which is why I went out last night at 9 pm for tacos, but that’s another post…to make the deal more fair, I bought the entire line of “Dessert delights” line that Extra is putting out. Strawberry shortcake, Orange Creme Pop, Key Lime Pie, and Mint Chocolate Ice Cream. I tried the strawberry shortcake first, and it tasted of sugary asscake. The orange creme pop is satisfactorily orange-y. The mint chocolate chip, oh sweet skateboarding raptor zombies, is to die for.
The key lime pie? It’s still sitting, wrapped, on top of my computer. The perverse monkey-demon is whining at me to unwrap it and try it already. It smells nice and lime-y, he says. Come on, it can’t be all that bad, he says. You can always spit it out! And I try, I really do. But every time I reach for that pack of gum, my tongue starts to edge nervously away, and my eyeballs itch. They override the monkey-demon. For now. I mean, key lime is key lime…..right?
Let’s just say that my first attempt to recreate this pie did not go well. I assembled all the ingredients, the cracker crust, the cherries, the cream cheese (I think it was cream cheese) and bag of limes. Only….I forgot to read the entire recipe and ended up squeezing the ENTIRE bag of limes into lime juice, which made the entire pie something of a novelty in the “O.O face” department. I haven’t tried to make it since then, but I still love me some key lime pie. Which was why I was interested to see the bakery’s offering the other day of something they called “key lime cupcakes.”
Interesting! They were those little mini cupcakes that you buy to make yourself feel better about not consuming a huge hunk of cake, only you end up eating like, three of them because really, they’re just a BITE of cupcake, and one can never have just a bite of cupcake. They looked good, white cake with key lime colored frosting swirls on the top, with a white star topping that looked like whipped cream. They smelled appropriately lime-y. So I bought them and took them home, happily anticipating key lime cupcake bliss. I mean, hey, if key lime pie is good and cupcakes are good, what could possibly go wrong with this combination?
The first taste of frosting was awesome. Tart, creamy, and just the right amount of sour tang. I then made what turned out to be a fatal mistake - I put the whole mini cupcake into my eager mouth, chomping down into what I thought was going to be the most awesome culinary delight since chocolate lava brownies. I was wrong, oh so very wrong.
The moment the combination of tangy, tart frosting and sweet, sugary cake hit my tongue, my mouth seemed to go into some sort of emergency air lock mode. My jaw locked open. My eyes bulged from their sockets in an attempt to free themselves from my skull and discern for themselves what, exactly, I had put into my mouth. My tongue made a frantic escape attempt, hampered by the fact that I was drooling copiously, slobbering greenish foam down my chin. I staggered around the kitchen, making “Auugh, awwuhh auuff!!” noises and yanking on my hair. (I think I was trying to reason with my tongue while levering my eyeballs back into place, the memory is a bit fuzzy)
At some point I made it to the sink and spat out the remains of the key mutant cup lime cake from hell, and spent the next ten minutes or so gargling with cherry pepsi. I did have fun, however, feeding the rest of the cupcakes to Mr. Garbage Disposal, who is far less picky about what he puts into his mouth. Needless to say, I have been a bit more selective about anything labeled “key lime” that is not actually pie. So imagine my interest and hesitation when I noticed, in the check out counter line yesterday, a pack of Extra Sugar Free Gum labeled “Key Lime Pie”.
As wary as I am of such things, some perverse monkey-demon that lives in my soul started demanding I buy it at once and try it out. Giving in to the monkey-demon is far easier than listening to it whine, which is why I went out last night at 9 pm for tacos, but that’s another post…to make the deal more fair, I bought the entire line of “Dessert delights” line that Extra is putting out. Strawberry shortcake, Orange Creme Pop, Key Lime Pie, and Mint Chocolate Ice Cream. I tried the strawberry shortcake first, and it tasted of sugary asscake. The orange creme pop is satisfactorily orange-y. The mint chocolate chip, oh sweet skateboarding raptor zombies, is to die for.
The key lime pie? It’s still sitting, wrapped, on top of my computer. The perverse monkey-demon is whining at me to unwrap it and try it already. It smells nice and lime-y, he says. Come on, it can’t be all that bad, he says. You can always spit it out! And I try, I really do. But every time I reach for that pack of gum, my tongue starts to edge nervously away, and my eyeballs itch. They override the monkey-demon. For now. I mean, key lime is key lime…..right?
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