“Robert is Here” is a rowdy roadside market in Homestead that was started by six-year old Robert
Moehling in 1959 as he sold his father’s cucumbers on the honor system with a can where the customers could put their money while Robert was in school. But on day one, as little Robert was at the stand, no one stopped. His dad thought no one saw Robert, so he made signs he tacked up on both sides of the stand proclaiming, “Robert is Here.” It worked. Thus, their thriving family business was born and continues today with a greatly enhanced inventory of fruits and vegetables. By age 14, industrious Robert had bought his first ten-acre piece of property and planted an avocado grove. The key lime recipe below, inspired by Robert’s recipe, is “an old-fashioned standard in our family,” says Robert’s wife, Tracey.
Last week, I put a recipe for Kaye Morris’ Lemon Cheesecake in our Kitchen Kapers column. I received a call here at The Apopka Chief from Carolyn, who is one of our readers. She said that she wanted to make a lemon cheesecake for Thanksgiving (or maybe Christmas), but that this particular recipe included NO cream cheese! I reread the recipe from Plains PotPourri to see if I had left out the cream cheese. Nope.
No cream cheese in the original recipe. Imagine my chagrin! I think maybe the person who hand-wrote all the recipes in that cookbook mis-titled it. So, this week, especially for Carolyn, is another cheesecake recipe, this one also lemon flavored which she said is one of her favorites. It uses a regular flour crust, flavored with lemon though, not the graham cracker crust that we have grown to love.
Fruits with Liqueurs from Cooking with Foliage La Sertoma of Apopka. We thank the ladies of the Sertoma Club for their recipes.
Alton Brown, the famous chef from the Good Eats show on Food Network, tells us how to make pie crust from scratch. The “blind baking” he refers to is simply pre-baking the pie crust prior to filling, and the beans are being used as weights to hold down the pie crust. Or you can always use pie weights.
ROBERT MOEHLING’S
CLASSIC KEY LIME PIE
“ROBERT IS HERE,”
HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA
Recipe from Field to Feast
CRUST: (makes 8-inch pie)
1-1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
FILLING:
4 egg yolks
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh Key lime juice
TOPPING:
3/4 cup chilled heavy cream
Make the Crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter in a bowl with a fork until combined. Press onto bottom and sides of 9-inch pie plate. Bake on middle rack of oven 10 minutes; cool completely.
Make the Filling and Bake: Whisk together egg yolks and condensed milk. Add Key lime juice and whisk until mixture thickens slightly. Pour filling into crust and bake on middle rack of oven 15 minutes. Cool completely, then refrigerate, covered, at least 8 hours.
Make the Topping: Just before serving, whip cream with an electric mixer until stiff. Serve pie topped with the whipped cream.
LEMON CHEESE CAKE
Recipe from Savannah Style,
a Cookbook by The Junior League of Savannah, Inc.
Crust:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1-1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
Peel of 1 small lemon, grated
4 drops lemon extract
In a small bowl and at low speed of mixer, mix butter, egg, flour, 1/3 cup sugar, lemon peel and lemon extract. Shape the dough into a ball. Wrap in waxed paper and chill 1 hour. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Press one-third of the dough into the bottom of a spring form pan. Sprinkle with remaining 1 teaspoon sugar. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool. Reset oven temperature to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.
Filling:
5 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup milk
1-3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
4 eggs
Peel of 1 small lemon, grated
In a large bowl, at medium speed of mixer, beat cream cheese with milk until smooth and fluffy. Slowly beat in sugar. With mixer on low speed, beat in flour and remaining ingredients. Beat at medium speed for 5 minutes.
Press remaining dough around sides of pan to within 1 inch of the top. Do not bake. Pour cream cheese mixture into pan. Bake for 12 minutes. Turn oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and bake 35 additional minutes. Leave cheese cake in oven at least 30 minutes to cool, then cool on a wire rack. Chill overnight if possible, remove from spring form pan and serve. If cake appears to be too soft in the center after the 35 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, extend the time 10 to 20 minutes.
FRUITS WITH LIQUEURS
Recipe from Cooking with
Foliage La Sertoma of Apopka
3 to 4 oranges
4 to 5 ripe peaches
6 to 7 ripe plums
1-1/2 cups seedless grapes
1-1/2 cups fresh berries such as strawberries or blueberries or a mixture of berries
5 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoons Cognac liqueur
3 tablespoons Kirsch liqueur
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier liqueur
Peel the oranges, removing all the white pulp. Break or cut the oranges into sections and discard the seeds. There should be about 1-1/2 cups or orange sections. Halve the peaches and plums and remove the pits. Cut the fruit into wedges. There should be about 3 cups of peach and plum wedges. Combine all the fruits in a mixing bowl and sprinkle with the sugar. Blend well. Cover and chill until ready to serve. When ready to serve, add the Cognac, Kirsch and Grand Marnier. Stir to blend and serve immediately. 6 servings.
ALTON BROWN’S PIE CRUST
(from the show: GOOD EATS)
As published on Foodnetwork.com
Ingredients (for one 9-inch piecrust):
3 ounces (6 tablespoons) butter, chilled
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) lard, chilled
6 ounces (approximately 1 cup) all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling dough
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 cup ice water, in spritz bottle
Approximately 32 ounces of dried beans, for blind baking
Directions:
1) Place butter and lard in freezer for 15 minutes. When ready to use, remove and cut both into small pieces.
2) In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour and salt by pulsing 3 to 4 times. Add butter and pulse 5 to 6 times until texture looks mealy. Add lard and pulse another 3 to 4 times. Remove lid of food processor and spritz surface of mixture thoroughly with water. Replace lid and pulse 5 times. Add more water and pulse again until mixture holds together when squeezed. Place mixture in large zip-top bag, squeeze together until it forms a ball, and then press into a rounded disk and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3) Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
4) Place 2 metal pans in the refrigerator to chill.
5) Remove dough from refrigerator. Cut along 2 sides of the plastic bag, open bag to expose dough, and sprinkle both sides with flour. Cover again with plastic and roll out with a rolling pin to a 10 to 11-inch circle. Open plastic again and sprinkle top of dough with flour. Remove pie pans from refrigerator and set first pan on top of dough. Turn everything upside down and peel plastic from bottom of dough. Place second pan upside down on top of dough and flip again. Remove first pan from atop dough. Trim edges if necessary, leaving an edge for meringue to adhere to. Poke holes in dough and place in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
6) Place a large piece of parchment paper on top of dough and fill with dry beans. Press beans into edges of dough and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove parchment and beans and continue baking until golden in color, approximately 10 to 15 minutes longer. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack. Let cool completely before filling.
