Use Ritz Crackers to Make Buttery Cakes Without Baking
Graham’s crackers crusts occupy a very important niche for desserts: a quick and easy dish when you want a pie, but it can’t be slid to turn on the oven. As someone who hates sweating and literally always wants pie, I’d like to worry more about them.
I’ll never give up on a slice, but my least favorite places to find a Graham cracker crust are my all-time favorites: lime and lemon meringue. Graham’s crackers just don’t go with citrus and you can’t convince me otherwise. I think they are delicious with melted chocolate and sticky marshmallows, where their nutty, whole grain flavor and dry texture really make sense. Citrus tarts need something buttery to set off the filling, which is why I always prefer them with the traditional crusty crust.
But as we said above, there are times when I just don’t want to bake the dough – and I don’t want the Graham crackers either. In my opinion, the perfect solution is Atlantic Beach Pie , an extremely simple recipe I saw on Food52 and in the New York Times culinary section last summer. The crust is just butter, sugar, and crushed salty crackers ; the filling is a super easy situation with condensed milk and lemon juice. After cooling and hardening, the whole thing is topped with whipped cream and flaky salt. I’ve been thinking about this salty-sweet lime-lemon meringue mashup literally every day for about a year, but since I’m an idiot, I still didn’t get it. So now I am making up for lost time with another substitution.
The brine is fine, but the Ritz crackers are scientifically perfect. They’re buttery, lightly flaky, and sweet enough, and that’s all I want for a pie crust. Instead of the salty ones, I decided I wanted the Ritz crackers. I also didn’t want to turn on my oven at all – it was 90ºF in Philadelphia yesterday – so I changed my method to skip baking altogether. Here’s how to do it.
Combine half a stick of butter and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a food processor until smooth, creamy, then add 6 ounces (about a sleeve and a half) of Ritz crackers. Whisk until the crackers are finely chopped and the mixture is sealed, scraping over the bowl as needed. Press down on an 8-inch baking pan and freeze while you cook the filling, which sits somewhere between the lemon curd and the condensed milk patissier . Naturally, I cook this in the microwave.
Whisk a whole can of condensed milk with half a glass of lemon juice and microwave until hot, for a minute or two. In a separate bowl, whisk one whole egg, three yolks, and a quarter cup of cornstarch. Knead eggs and starch with a cup of hot condensed milk mixture, toss the tempered eggs with the remaining condensed milk and microwave in 30-second portions until thickened to a pudding consistency. Smooth out the lumps with aggressive beating (or a blender), cool slightly and pour into the prepared crust. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly to the surface of the filling and refrigerate until it hardens, about 6 hours. If desired, freeze the pie for about an hour before serving; this will help the slices maintain their shape. Sprinkle with whipped cream, lemon or lime zest and flaked salt on top.
Honestly, this could be my new favorite pie. I won’t lie to say that another variety of crackers completely solves the problem of the structural integrity of the crumb crust without baking, while significantly improving both flavor and texture. Instead of dusty cracker crumbs, you get crunchy little chunks of extra-buttery Ritz in every bite – and between the added butter and the flavor of the crackers themselves, the overall flavor is much closer to crust dough than you might think. This is an ingenious swap that will work with any buttery salty cracker you have on hand. I have a feeling that I will be making a lot more pies this summer.