Looking for a quick, easy, delicious, and tart key lime pie recipe? Well, you have come to the right food blog! This recipe only requires a few ingredients, comes together fairly quickly (except for the squeezing of all those little limes, ha!), and has that mouth pucker, eye squinting tartness that every key lime pie needs – IMO I required to have.

The filling for this recipe will make two 9” pies in a regular pie plate or one, deep 9” pie made in a springform pan – which happens to be my favorite. I’ve used both store-bought graham cracker crusts as well as homemade. While the store-bought version does the job, the homemade crust will take this dessert over the top! If you have the time it’s worth the effort! 🙂
Let’s start with the filling, see below! Click here for my homemade graham cracker crust!
Edible Flowers: Do’s and Don’t
Lately, I’ve been into decorating cakes with flowers, I think it gives the cake a beautiful and elegant appearance. You can decorate with flowers that are not food safe but wrap the stems with plastic wrap before inserting them into the cake.
Food Safe Flowers:
- Pansy, Roses, Hibiscus, Violets, Dandylions and Sunflowers, Corn Flower, Lilac and others.
- NOTE – This is not a complete list and while the bloom may be edible some berries and stems are not. Please do your research and/or consult a plant professional prior to using flowers in or on food that will be consumed.
Flowers that can cause stomach irration (or worse) if digested:
- Baby’s Breath, Bleeding Heart, Calla Lily, Daffodil, Iris, Hydrandea, Marigold, Tulip, Morning Glory, among others.
- NOTE – This is not a complete list of toxic flowers, please do your research and/or consult a plant professional prior to using flowers in or on food that will be consumed.

Key Lime Pie
- Prep Time: 30 min
- Chill Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 8-10 miutes
- Total Time: 57 minute
- Yield: 8–10 slices 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
Ingredients
- 3 cans sweetened condensed milk
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 cup key lime juice – to get that this quantity you’ll need at least 1 full bag or 15–20 key limes
- 1 + 1/2 tablespoon grated lime zest
- whipped topping – optional
- edible flowers – optional
- lemon and lime slices for decorating – optional
*Note – you will need to either buy a graham cracker crust or make your own before starting this recipe.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F
- First, begin by zesting enough limes to collect 1 + 1/2 tablespoons of zest. Note – don’t grate too hard, you only want the green, the white pith is bitter, so avoid zesting too deep. Then juice the limes. I cut them in half and use a hand squeezer to get the most juice. Alternatively, you can use key lime juice from Key West.
- Next, in a bowl, combine condensed milk, sour cream, lime juice, and lime zest. Mix well, remove all sour cream lumps and pour into graham cracker crust.
- Bake in preheated oven for about 8 minutes or until small bubbles burst on the surface of the pie.
- Refrigerate pie until chilled thoroughly, at least 2 hours. Top with whipped cream or deccrate with flowers and limes if desired, serve chilled and watch everyone enjoy!
Notes
If using whipped topping – fill a piping bag or zip lock baggie with whipped topping and snip a small corner off the baggie then pipe rosettes on top and add a little lime zest for extra decoration.
Keywords: pie, key lime, dessert, sweets, tart, graham cracker, easy, lime, lemon, edible flowers
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