Culinary Adventures: Atlantic Beach Pie

Culinary adventures: Making Atlantic Beach Pie. This southern-style citrus pie is super easy and tastes like a big creamy lemon bar. Great to bring to a BBQ!

I was looking at recipes for lemon pies on Pinterest and happened across a pin from NPR with a recipe for Bill Smith’s North Carolina -style Atlantic Beach Pie, and decided I had to try it.

Recipe from http://www.npr.org/2013/04/11/176279512/a-north-carolina-pie-that-elicits-an-oh-my-god-response

Recipe: Bill Smith’s Atlantic Beach Pie

Makes one pie
For the crust:
1 1/2 sleeves of saltine crackers
1/3 to 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
For the filling:
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup lemon or lime juice or a mix of the two
Fresh whipped cream and coarse sea salt for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crush the crackers finely, but not to dust. You can use a food processor or your hands. Add the sugar, then knead in the butter until the crumbs hold together like dough. Press into an 8 inch pie pan. Chill for 15 minutes, then bake for 18 minutes or until the crust colors a little.

While the crust is cooling (it doesn’t need to be cold), beat the egg yolks into the milk, then beat in the citrus juice. It is important to completely combine these ingredients. Pour into the shell and bake for 16 minutes until the filling has set. The pie needs to be completely cold to be sliced. Serve with fresh whipped cream and a sprinkling of sea salt.

I crushed the saltines in the packages, and while I liked the chunkiness of the texture, it didn’t hold together that well. I think that next time I will crush a bit finer in either a food processor or a gallon zip lock bag. It did taste great though.

Atlantic-Beach-Pie (2) — Crushed saltines, butter, and sugar

Atlantic-Beach-Pie (4) — Baking the crust

For the juice I used my electric citrus juicer to squeeze lemons. I didn’t use any lime juice, just lemon. I would strongly recommend using fresh lemon juice over bottled, the bottled has an acidic taste that I’m not fond of. I only ended up needing one large lemon for the 1/2 cup of lemon juice.

The filling mix for the Atlantic Beach Pie was rather runny when pouring it into a pre-baked pie shell. The result after baking was a smooth, firm, custard however.

The Atlantic Beach Pie turned out delicious, and it was ridiculously easy. I sprinkled the top with a little sea salt like the recipe called for, and served with whipped cream. It tasted kind of like a big, extra-creamy lemon bar. I’m keeping this recipe in my mental lexicon of easy summer BBQ potluck dishes.