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Lemon Icebox Pie

Lemon Icebox Pie

Lemon Icebox Pie (eggless) recipe

1 8-oz block cream cheese, room temp
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup fresh or bottled lemon juice
Zest of two lemons

vanilla wafer pie crust in a pie pan

Using a cheap, light hand mixer, cream the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sweetened condensed milk -- NOTE: NOT EVAPORATED MILK!!! -- and cream the two together until smooth. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest, and mix until fully incorporated and smooth. Pour into a prepared cookie crumb pie crust of your choice (wouldn't dark chocolate wafer cookies be an interesting choice?), and chill overnight.

This is not your Mama's lemon ice box pie recipe. Your Mama may have used raw egg yolks to thicken an Eagle-Brand-and-lemon-juice mixture. And there ain't nothin' wrong with that, exactly, but I am just a little too squeamish to put up with such glib trust in the American food source system. I'm not saying The Man is out to get us. I'm just saying I don't know what The Man is doing in enclosed egg-laying operations.

Anyway, even if this recipe is devoid of eggs, and you might worry (as I initially did) that the cream cheese would somehow dull that tart lemon edge that 1974 lemon ice box pie boasted, this modernized version is very good and tart, and it sets up beautifully when chilled overnight.

And the vanilla wafer crumb crust is soooo good with this filling! I highly recommend it. Oh, sure, I might toy with the idea of a chocolate crust, but that would be madness. 

Here's a picture of my pie gussied up with lemon slices and a sprig of mint, which I'm pretty sure my husband ate. I really wanted to find some foliage from a lemon tree to garnish the pie, but I just do not know where to find a lemon tree in East Tennessee. Roses are edible... maybe I should have bought some roses and scattered petals over the pie. 



But I didn't want to go to the store when I could have spent that time cutting into the pie and eating it.

So lemon slices and boring old mint sprig it is, and I hope I find something a little more interestingly decorative for the next pie.

Serve with whipped cream or, if you really want to bring the 1970's back, a big blob of Cool Whip is very good, too.

More pictures...






I really hope you try this pie, and let me know how your crust turns out!

--Bay
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Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 24, 2023 at 7:37 PM

    Note to self (and anyone else who accidentally reads this abandoned blog): Use a deep dish pie plate.

    ReplyDelete

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