Bright green, creamy and bright, spruce key lime pie is one of the most enjoyable spruce tip recipes I’ve made. I love spruce tips, but cooking with them is kind of a misnomer. Besides making syrup (which is great) I don’t really cook them much.
Just like paw paws, spruce tips keep their flavor and bright color better if they’re not exposed to high heat. That, and their affinity for lime were what gave me the idea to try and make a key lime pie from them.
I tried a few versions when I was developing this, and, the more avante-garde I got, the less I liked it. There’s just something magical about a can of sweetened condensed milk that really makes it.
A homemade crust is nice, but optional.
Here’s how it works. Take some cream and warm it with the sweetened condensed milk. Diluting the cream with sweetened condensed milk denatures the cream’s tendency to thicken when it’s agitated, so you can puree it with the spruce tips without turning it into butter.
A sprinkle of fresh tips makes a nice garnish.
After the mixture is pureed, you strain it through the finest strainer you have. Then you mix in a bunch of lime juice. The lime makes the dairy seize up and thicken like magic, and from there you spoon it into a crust, chill it to set, and serve.
Edible flowers make a nice garnish, just make sure they’re mild and not too savory. Pictured is scarlet bee balm and campanula flowers.
The Crust
I did a couple different versions here to make it so even people that don’t like to bake can make this. First I made a nice crust with black walnuts and graham crackers.
The walnut crust is great, but, after eating a key lime pie one of my relatives brought to a family gathering and seeing that she used a pre-made crust, I had to try it with one of those too, just to make sure it would work. It does, and if you’re pressed for time, there’s no shame in using one.
Use fresh or frozen spruce tips
One of the best parts about spruce tips is that they freeze well.
They lose a tiny bit of their bright color, and you won’t be sprinkling them on anything, but frozen spruce tips are sold to chefs for $20/lb through wholesalers in North America all year long. It’s also ok if your tips are a little leggy or long since they’ll be pureed and strained.
Straining
If you look closely at the two different cakes in this post, you’ll see that one has more green flecks than the other. For the most refined version, you’ll want to strain it.
Some people don’t mind small flecks of tips in desserts like this, as well as my all time favorite spruce tip ice cream and panna cotta. If you don’t have a very fine strainer, it’s ok. It’s not my first choice, and you need to grind them up well, but it will work in a pinch.
Spruce Tip Key Lime Pie
Ingredients
Filling
- Scant 1 oz spruce tips, chopped such as white spruce, or blue spruce
- 1 3/4 cups heavy cream
- 4 sheets leaf gelatin (silver) or one ¼ oz packet unflavored gelatin sheet gelatin grades are organized by color/strength-see note
- ¼ teaspoon salt a pinch
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- A few scrapes of fresh lime zest
- 1/2 cup key lime juice
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
Walnut-Graham Crust
- ¼ teaspoon salt a pinch
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1.25 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1/4 cup finely chopped black walnuts or regular walnuts
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Good pinch of salt
Instructions
Crust
- First bake the crust. Preheat the oven to 350, then melt the butter and mix with the graham crumbs and black walnut or regular walnuts, cinnamon, sugar and salt. Press the mixture into an 9-10 inch inch pie dish, then bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool the crust while you prepare the filling.
Filling
- Bloom the gelatin sheets if using in ice water. Warm half of the cream with the condensed milk in a saucepan, then whisk in the gelatin sheets (squeeze them dry) or powdered gelatin thoroughly until just dissolved, remove from the heat, add the remaining cream, salt and sugar and whisk in a sink or bowl full of cold water until room temperature.
- If you use powdered gelatin you'll want to puree it with a hand blender to make sure there aren't any clumps.
- Pour the mixture into a blender with the spruce tips and puree for 30 seconds or so, until well blended and the mixture is a brilliant green, then strain through the finest strainer you have into a mixing bowl.
- Whisk the lime zest and juice into the cream-spruce mixture well (it will cause it to thicken, this is normal) then pour into your par-baked crust.
- Refrigerate until set, at least a few hours and preferably overnight.
Serving
- Cut the pie into slices and serve with whipped cream and a few spruce tip needles if you have some. Gently cooked wild blueberries make a good garnish too.
Notes
More
Spruce Tips: Harvesting, Cooking and Recipes
A homemade crust is nice, but optional.
How much sweetened condensed milk please? Have you made this with egg yolks instead of gelatin? Thank you.
Thanks Raquel, you guys are on the ball today. I haven’t made it with egg yolks because for best practice the should be cooked, and I wanted to keep this all-raw. You could probably whip some in a double boiler and fold them in, but I’d have to compare some similar recipes that have comparable proportions (mousses, etc) to find a starting point.
This looks delicious! Condensed milk seems to be missing from the ingredient list…how much is needed? Thanks
I am the typo king! Thanks Nancy, I added it.
I think you left out the condensed milk from the ingredient list
Thanks Gram, I’m on it.
I’ve been thinking about what to do with the delicious spruce tips I taste from a tree I pass when i walk to the mailbox. This (and the other recipes) look like just the ticket! Thanks
Thank you for the tip on freezing the spruce tips. seems they always come and go before I have time to remember what I wanted to make with them. I have never bought key lines but assume I can find them at the grocery at some point during the year.
Love seeing spruce tips in desserts. This seems like a brilliant combo — can’t wait to try it! Thanks for pointing out that the flavour of spruce tips is super easily damaged by heat. Nine times out of then when I encounter them in preserves and syrups, they’ve been cooked to oblivion and are unrecognizable. What species do you use BTW?
I really like white spruce, Norway spruce, and blue, in that order.
Hello Alan
Thank you for this excellent pie recipe (plus other spruce tip delights) which I will be trying in the next couple days. For further culinary adventures, this just in from another local foodie forager. I got to my spruce tips a little late and was whining about it to friends. One of them highly recommended juniper tips in place of spruce and I have a bush in the back yard in perfect shape for a harvest. I believe one would have to be a bit more careful with amount used, as Juniper is more astringent than spruce. I’m going to make two pies and have a tasting session with the foodies; critical comments are sure to be flying.
Did a quick search on the web, but couldn’t find anything about using juniper tips; had to wade through uses for juniper berries so maybe missed it.
I may have to try the pie with larch (aka tamarack) tips next year. I find the larch tips a preferred snack when in the bush at this time of year. Spruce tip ice cream next on the list.
Thank goodness there are people like you on this planet.
Regards, Velma
Thanks Velma
This turned out incredible! The spruce flavor and color were not quite as apparent in mine, but that may be because I didn’t use enough spruce tips or because I left them in the fridge for a little while before using. Regardless, the texture and flavor were perfect.
Good. You can always add a little more spruce if you want to adjust the flavor, but you can’t take it away. Remember for next time.
Wonderful pie! I made this as soon as the recipe came out while we were at our rv in northern Saskatchewan. I used a small compote of Saskatoons (serviceberry) for the topping. As we were to have a silent auction fund-raiser for our camp I decided to enter 1 pie into the auction. So as a preview to the upcoming auction I gave samples out to four or five fellow campers so that there would be people to vouch for the taste on the day of the auction! Long story short, I doubled the recipe and made three pies ( using purchased Graham crusts) and it was a great hit at the auction… $45 per pie (CAN). A new boreal forest fav!!!😉
Glad it worked for you.