Dessert / Pies: Lemon Cream Icebox Pie with Lemon Nut Cookie Crust

By Shelly Carey

Ingredients
Filling
6 large eggs
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
¾ cup fresh lemon juice
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into eight pieces
1 cup heavy cream, chilled

Crust
20 Lemon Nut cookies – or other lemon cookies (to yield 1 ½ cups crumbs)
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
½ teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Raspberry sauce
12 oz frozen raspberries, thawed
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions
For crust, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cookies in a food process and process until finely ground. Combine crumbs, 1 stick unsalted butter, lemon zest, salt and vanilla in medium bowl. Stir until crumbs are moistened. Press mixture into a 9-inch pie plate and all the way up the sides of the pan. Bake crust for 6-8 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Let it cool completely.

For filling, combine eggs, sugar and lemon zest in medium saucepan and whisk until smooth. Add lemon juice and butter and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until thickened (7-9 minutes). Do not allow to come to boil. Pour lemon curd through fine mesh strainer into a bowl. Cover surface of lemon curd with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until chilled (at least 3 hours).

In a medium bowl, whip cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold cream into chilled curd. Scrape pie mixture into pie shell. Cover pie with plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely set (at least six hours, up to one day).

Raspberry sauce: Puree raspberries in a food processor. Push through a strainer to remove seeds. To strained raspberries add confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice. Mix well. Drizzle over pie before to serve.