Don’t you wish you were married to Luscious? Wouldn’t you be just as sweet as our desserts with all that yummy food around? Well, unfortunately, in much the same way a stripper’s husband starts to take sparkly thongs for granted, the availability of dessert has not lessened the Luscious spouses’ collective tendency towards a curmudgeonly outlook. One Luscious husband in particular is suspicious of and made grumpy by pretty much everything, including:

– All cars, music, and people made after 1979
– Hippies
– Hipsters (of course they annoy everyone, even themselves)
– Grammatical errors in commercials, which provoke a great deal of yelling at the TV
– Graham cracker pie crust (Seriously??)

Really, why would you even try to please a person like that? But he does like pie, God bless ‘im, so we created this version of lime pie just for him, the big grouch, with a shortbread cookie style crust, and sour cream to make it extra tangy. Are you happy now, Mr. Luscious?

Lime Sour Cream Tart with Coconut Cookie Crust

For the crust:
1/3 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon coconut oil (optional)
1 stick butter, slightly softened
1/3 cup heavy cream, cold

For the filling:
2 tablespoons lime zest
½ cup fresh lime juice (you’ll need about 3 or 4 large limes, or if you want to make key lime pie, you’ll need approximately 200 tiny key limes.)
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup sour cream
3 egg yolks

For the meringue:
4 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
½ cup sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350º, and have ready a 9” tart pan with removable bottom bottom. Spread the coconut out on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven for 5-8 minutes. Watch it carefully, because of the sugar it will go from “hmmm, it’s not toasting” to “ohmygod, it’s burnt to a crisp” in approximately 56 seconds. Whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Then whisk in the toasted coconut. Drizzle the coconut oil over the flour. Cut the butter into pieces and add to the flour. Cut the butter and oil into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or fork. When the mixture begins resemble fine crumbs, drizzle the cream over the dough and mix in with a spatula. Press the dough evenly into the bottom and sides of a tart pan. You may accidentally eat a little of the delicious dough, oops. Prick the bottom and sides all over with a fork, and bake for 16-20 minutes until lightly golden brown. If it puffs in the oven, you can prick it again while baking and it will deflate.

While the crust is baking, make the filling, with is super easy once you’ve juiced and zested the limes. Oh, and, well,  separated all the eggs… okay, this pie is not all that easy to make, but this part is. Mix together all the filling ingredients. Bam, that’s it.

Now, we know you’re thinking… I’ve put 3 egg yolks in the filling and I’ve need 4 egg whites for the meringue, what the heck am I supposed to with this extra egg yolk? Luscious always has a plan (sometimes it’s a bad plan, but not this time.) Mix the 4th egg yolk with a pinch of salt, and brush across the surface of your slightly cooled but still warm pie crust. This will help prevent the filling from making the crust soggy.

Pour the filling into the crust. Bake for 7 minutes. The filling will be thickened but still jiggly.

While the pie is baking, make the meringue. This will either go beautifully or be a disaster, you have to just accept that fact and have some whipping cream on hand for a plan B pie topping. Eggs whites can be fussy to work with, but just stay with us on this, and you should wind up with a lovely meringue. Put your egg whites into squeaky clean dry bowl. If there are any bits of yolk in your whites, try to remove them. Using a handmixer with very clean beaters, beat the egg whites on med high until white and foamy. Sprinkle in the cream of tartar and beat until until soft peaks form. Slowly, GRADUALLY add the sugar while beating. Continue until stiff, but not dry, glossy peaks form. Hooray, meringue! Carefully spread the meringue over the pie filling, making sure it is touching the crust all the way around—otherwise it might tragically slide off. You can use your spatula to gently form little loops and peaks in the meringue.

Gently slide your pie back into the oven, and bake for another 20 minutes until the meringue is lightly browned. If you want to add even more toasty color to your meringue, you can employ a few minutes’ judicious use of a kitchen blowtorch or a small regular blowtorch. We borrow the blowtorch belonging to Mr. Grumpy Luscious, and he goes off muttering something about “girls” and “tools” and “not right.” We totally ignore him, which is standard operating procedure. Using a blowtorch will make you feel a badass, even if it’s just for pie.

Let your pie cool a little then pop in the refrigerate until cold. Garnish with lime slices and serve this beautiful pie to your favorite curmudgeon.