A Slice of Paradise
This highly-requested key lime cheesecake recipe eluded me for years. Three years, to be exact. While you might think that it would be as simple as adding a splash of lime juice and zest to my classic cheesecake recipe, it turns out that is absolutely not the case. Simply adding lime juice actually negatively affected the texture; made it too mealy, too airy for what should be a smooth and creamy custard, and resulted in a lackluster lime flavor that was lost beside the tang of the cream cheese. I went through dozens of boxes of said cream cheese before repeatedly, begrudgingly, tabling the recipe to perfect at a later time. The key lime cheesecake breakthrough finally came when I cracked the code for my lemon cheesecake recipe. Rather than simply adding juice (which contains a great deal of water and results in the awkward texture), cooking the juice into a curd results in a smooth, creamy custard. Equally importantly, it also yields bright key lime flavor that’s not too sour with just the right amount of tart–like a key lime pie and cheesecake rolled into one! Cut yourself a slice, and you’ll be grateful this recipe only took three years of testing! 😉
What You Need
You need just 9 ingredients to make this this cheesecake! Here are a few of the important ones:
Key lime juice. If you have access to key limes–great! Otherwise, bottled key lime juice is fine. When I can’t find fresh limes I use the brand pictured above (Nellie & Joe), which is evidently not a true key lime (it’s a “key west lime”, tricky!) but does in fact yield the proper key lime flavor and is preferable to regular lime juice (which I don’t recommend).Room temperature cream cheese. Full-fat, brick-style cream cheese is the only kind I recommend using in any of my cheesecake recipes. Sour cream. This works nicely with the key lime flavor, deepening it and imparting just the right amount of tartness to the key lime cheesecake.Graham crackers. Digestive biscuits will also work if you don’t have graham crackers in your area. Gingersnaps would be delicious too!
SAM’S TIP: Your key lime curd will need to cool completely before you add it to the cheesecake batter. To speed this up, you can place the curd in the fridge (just remember to place a piece of plastic wrap against the surface first!) Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Key Lime Cheesecake
SAM’S TIP: Be gentle with your eggs! I’ve found that overbeating cheesecake batter, particularly once the eggs are added, can cause the cheesecake to crack. So many of you have been waiting for this recipe, and I can’t wait to hear what you think! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
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