BA’s Best Key Lime Pie

A standout Key lime pie recipe is all about striking balance: The crunch of the homemade graham cracker crust should play off a creamy custard pie filling that’s both sweet and tangy. This recipe delivers just that.

It comes down to a few ingredients and techniques: To ensure it stays crisp, the crust is blind baked, meaning it’s popped in the oven for a bit before the Key lime filling is added. You can complete this step up to two days in advance or use the baking time to make the custard. Using coconut oil in place of some of the melted butter in the pie crust offers hints of the tropics. Fresh Key limes, which are named for the Florida Keys, can be hard to track down, but they are worth seeking out for their floral finish. If they’re not available in your local market, you can snag a bag online via sites like Etsy and Wee!, or opt for Persian limes (the variety available at most grocery stores), which are larger and more tart. Just make sure to stick with fresh lime juice—shelf-stable, bottled versions aren’t reliable. Sweetened condensed milk supplies the sugar in the filling and also gives this pie its concentrated creaminess.

For the finish, we eschewed meringue—which can sometimes be a little too cloying—in favor of whipped cream cut with yogurt for one last hit of tang.