Jake and I had a goal to try a bunch of different Key Lime desserts while we were in Florida (and Key West). We didn’t quite get to try as many as we wanted to but we still got a variety. Desserts are listed in the order that we ate them.
1) Yoder’s Key Lime Pie
Yoder’s Amish Village / Sarasota, FL / $4.50
I already talked about this over here on this post. Fluffy, light, creamy, almost like “Key Lime lite” but really delicious with a flaky pastry crust. Good start.
2) Chocolate Dipped Key Lime Pie on a Stick
Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe / Key West, FL / $4.50
The Key Lime desserts journey continued with this: a Chocolate Dipped Key Lime Pie on a Stick.
It’s from this little shop on Duval Street that has ALL key lime related products sold in the store: sauces, seasonings, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, salt water taffy, etc. This seemed this a unique item for Jake, Chris and I to share so we got it.
It’s basically a frozen slice of key lime shop and it’s covered in dark chocolate. We didn’t really think the dark chocolate went very well with the tart flavor of the key lime pie. It was a nice cool treat though, almost like frozen cheesecake in texture. The graham cracker bottom was quite soft, maybe from being frozen. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t the best of the key lime desserts, either.
3) Key Lime Pie Donut
Glazed Donuts / Key West, FL / $3.00
This next item wasn’t planned – we just happened to stumble upon it while we were walking around Key West. We were going down a side street to go check out the Harry S. Truman Little White House and I saw a donut shop. OF COURSE I have to stop and look at a donut shop. It’s not something I can just pass by!
I peeked inside and I saw this cute display for their donuts. They had some really interesting looking items, like a Carrot Cake donut, Blueberry Bullseye, and Apple Almond Fritter. But as soon as I saw the bottom left item, I knew what we had to try.
A key lime pie donut!! Just shut up already! This sucker was FRESH – the donut itself had a nice crisp and had a glaze on top in addition to the fluffy meringue on top. The meringue was light, creamy, sticky and torched for a little extra flavor. The inside (which I didn’t photograph because the three of us basically stuffed our faces full of donut) had a nice tart key lime filling. It was creamy, cool and had a delicious amount of key lime in it. Paired with the yeasty donut it made for a perfect bite. Definitely better shared, I don’t think I could finish one alone (but I sure would try).
Here are some of the other Glazed items chilling on a rack after being freshly glazed and frosted. YUM.
4) Key Lime Pie
Pepe’s Cafe / Key West, FL / $7.25
After a day huffing it around Key West in the hot sun and humid weather, I was BUSHED. I didn’t want to walk another step but we managed to make it over to Pepe’s Cafe, the oldest restaurant in Key West. We had a late lunch (which consisted of a really, really excellent catch of the day – yellowtail snapper – grilled fish sandwich) and then dessert! We got the traditional Key Lime pie here. Pretty much EVERY place in Key West that sells food also sells key lime pie and this turned out to the only “traditional” one we tried.
Lucky for us it was excellent and really spot on. Homemade with a graham cracker crust, a light, creamy tart filling with strong key lime flavor and freshly made whipped cream (and a wedge of lime, which, looks more like a Persian lime than a key lime by the way). Very satisfying after a day of walking around.
5) Key Lime Gelato
Duetto’s Pizza and Gelato / Key West, FL
Later in the evening after watching sunset, we stopped and grabbed a pizza for dinner. We just wanted to chill out back at the hotel and I didn’t want to walk anymore. We spied that this place also had gelato so we got that, too.
They put three flavors of gelato into a big styofoam container for us and left in the freezer while we waited for our pizza to be ready. We stuck into our room’s freezer when we were really to actually dig in.
We got stracciatella, key lime, and hazelnut. All three were really excellent. I think of the three my favorite was the hazelnut though, though the key lime had a nice tart/lime flavor that was not too overpowering (maybe even a little on the “mild” side).
6) Fried Key Lime Pie
Porky’s Bayside / Marathon, FL / $5.75
On our way out of Key West, we stopped at this little outdoor spot in Marathon Key. This was one of my researched items – the Fried Key Lime Pie. As far as key lime desserts go, this one is really unique. It reminded me of fried ice cream – but with frozen key lime pie in the middle. The key lime part was very much like ice cream – creamy and cold.
They’re kept frozen so they’re easier to fry, naturally. The crust fell off after the first bite. It wasn’t a very thick crust and was almost kind of like a panko batter. It was a crispy crunchy exterior. The sauces are vanilla and raspberry (I could have done without the raspberry on top, personally). The key lime part was a touch too icy for my liking but held up well to the frying. It started melting right away since we were sitting outdoors in the hot, humid weather and it was a really nice cool treat to have.
This is a peek at the restaurant for the Fried Key Lime Pie – outdoors with a roof and lots of stuff hanging all over the place. Very kitschy, very funky and very fun!
My favorite item overall was either the Key Lime Pie donut or the pie from Yoder’s (and Jake agrees with me!). We had a lot of fun seeking out key lime desserts and luckily didn’t get sick of them (probably due to the variety of desserts). There was a key lime shake from Robert Is Here that I wished we had tried and I also wished we had tried more actual pies, but we just didn’t get around to it! Hope you enjoyed our meager list!
I had to look up what ‘bushed’ meant haha. I figured it was something like tired or wiped out but wanted to make sure. Have never heard that one before! English is my second language so always nice to learn a new word.
Also I think just regular ol’ key lime pie would be my favorite although I like the idea of key lime cheesecake…but agree that dark chocolate would probably not go well with it, they should’ve covered it in white chocolate!
Hi J.S. – Haha, I’m glad I could help you learn something new today then! Yeah, the dark chocolate was a little overkill – I agree, white chocolate would have been better. A lot more mild! It was interesting to try in any case. 🙂
The deep fried version looks amazing! I’m adding that to my bucket list, haha.
Hi Minion (er, David) – Yes. You should add that to your bucket list. It’d be funny if your next trip was to Key West and mine was Austin… swap destinations 🙂
Loved those glass displays at the 3rd place! Very cool! They also had a blueberry bullseye donut? Not sure what the bullseye part is, but the word blueberry certainly caught my attention!
This seemed like a really fun excursion and roundup!
Hi CC – Yeah, I don’t remember sadly. I remember there was a chocolate donut that looked like it had a donut hole on top and it was all covered in chocolate. Normally blueberry would catch my eye, too, but I only had eyes for the Key Lime donut that day! It was a lot of fun sampling all of the Key Lime stuff for “research”. 🙂
Hey Guys, So glad you liked our donuts! You should have told us you were on a key lime quest We could have helped guide your endeavors. The Bullseye is a style of filled jelly donut which doesn’t cram the whole thing full of jelly but instead removes a bit of dough from the top/center and is then filled with just enough jelly, in this case home made blueberry. The result is a donut with a big dot in the center that resembles the bullseye of a target.
We’re glad you enjoyed our donuts and on your next visit try our key-lime pie icecream pop (coated in lemon white chocolate shell and gram streusel) and the pie at the Square Grouper on Cudjoe key.
– The Glazed Team –
Hello Glazed Team! In retrospect, asking you guys for Key Lime suggestions would have been a really smart idea, haha. We did ask about sunset spots, so I guess that’s something! The Bullseye sounds awesome, I wish I had tried it (and really, all of your donuts since the key lime one was so good). Your place is definitely a go to spot for Key West! Thanks for your comment!
I *WANT* the Chocolate Dipped Key Lime Pie on a Stick!!! GIMME!!!
It looks more like key lime gelato or key lime ice cream. Or maybe that’s what I’m seeing in that pic. I just think a super tart key lime soft serve dipped in dark chocolate would be more than perfection right now. It has to be in a pie shape like your pic though. So that was my FrankenKeyLime creation wish after reading your list of 6 🙂
Hi Faye – Your comment made me chuckle! The pie was semi-frozen (but luckily not rock hard) to keep the chocolate on so that’s probably why it looks like an icy treat – it sort of was! I still think another type of chocolate would have been better but I have this tiny feeling you would have loved it as is. 🙂
The frozen stuff looks good right about now. It’s so freaking hot!! I’ve been eating frozen treats like once a week lately, it seems like (from my IG lol). I need to cut back to maybe once a month or something. A key lime frozen soufflé sounds pretty good right now too….cold, light, and airy!
Great finds! I love key lime. So does key lime/products taste different over there than what you would taste here in cali?
Hi Miss Kim – It must be a little warmer where you are! It’s in the upper 70’s here, it’s quite nice! We had chocolate dipped ice creams over the weekend… it really hit the spot (I shared mine with Jake). Key lime frozen soufflé sounds awesome! I’ve never made a soufflé, they sound a little scary, haha.
I don’t think they really taste very different, I think it’s just much more popular over there and so you see Key Lime everything all over Florida! Most of the Key Limes are not grown in Key West anymore though since most of the crops/trees were destroyed during a hurricane in the 1920’s! Over here they are more likely to use the Persian lime than the Key Lime though. We actually have a Key Lime tree in our back yard so I can make my own treats 🙂 It has so many thorns on it though, it’s a pain to get the limes if they are very high up!