Key Lime Bars
A buttery graham cracker base topped with a set key lime custard of condensed milk, egg yolks and lime juice.
Photograph credit: Key Lime Pie by Jon Lebkowsky · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Build the Meal Around Key Lime Bars
- Whipped cream
- Fresh berries
- Lime wedges
- Coffee
How to Make Key Lime Bars
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Heat the oven to 175°C / 345°F and line a 20 cm square tin. Mix the crumbs with the sugar and butter and press into the base.
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Bake the base for 10 minutes.
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Whisk the egg yolks with the condensed milk, lime juice and zest until smooth and pour over the hot base.
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Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until set at the edges with a slight wobble in the middle.
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Cool in the tin, then chill for 2 hours before cutting into sixteen bars.
Related guides: Prep, cook and total time · Pan and tin size.
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Worth Knowing Before You Cook
Press the base firmly.
Use fresh lime juice.
If your oven runs hot, check at 15 minutes.
Chill before cutting.
Changing the Recipe
- Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.
Storing and Reheating
Keeps in the fridge for 4 days.
Common Questions
How long does Key Lime Bars take to make?
15 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking, plus 2 hours of Chilling, so allow 2 hours 35 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 16.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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