Atlantic Beach pie is a type of lemon curd pie which uses a saltine crust and whipped cream topping sprinkled with salt. [1]
The recipe was developed by Bill Smith, then chef at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, restaurant Crook's Corner, who had as a child in the 1950s and 1960s vacationed in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, where local lore held that only citrus-based desserts could be safely eaten after eating seafood. [1] [2] When asked to develop a dessert for a Southern Foodways Alliance event in 2011, he developed a pie inspired by the lemon meringue pies typically offered in area seafood restaurants. [1] [3] Unlike lemon meringue pies, which typically use a shortcrust pastry base and are topped with meringue, Smith's recipe calls for a saltine cracker crust and a whipped cream topping and is garnished with finishing salt. [1]
Before being added to the Crook's Corner menu, the pie needed a name. According to Bill Smith himself, he "sort of offhandedly" named the dessert after the nearby beach town of Atlantic Beach. [2]
The pie uses a crust containing saltines, butter, and sugar and a curd containing lemons or limes, condensed milk, and egg yolks. [1] [4] The curd is topped with a sweetened whipped cream and then finishing salt and/or lemon zest. [1] The pie is notable for the speed and ease with which it can be made. [5]
Southern Living called the pie "the best dish of summer". [3]
Lemon meringue pie is a dessert pie consisting of a shortened pastry base filled with lemon curd and topped with meringue.
Crème caramel, flan, caramel pudding, condensed milk pudding or caramel custard is a custard dessert with a layer of clear caramel sauce.
Cheesecake is a dessert made with a soft fresh cheese, eggs, and sugar. It may have a crust or base made from crushed cookies, graham crackers, pastry, or sometimes sponge cake. Cheesecake may be baked or unbaked, and is usually refrigerated.
Key lime pie is an American dessert pie. It is made of lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk. It may be served with no topping, or with a meringue topping made from egg whites, or with whipped cream. It may be cooked in a pie crust, graham cracker crust, or no crust. The dish is named after the small Key limes, which are more aromatic than the common Persian limes, and which have yellow juice. The filling in a Key lime pie is typically yellow because of the egg yolks.
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and commonly other ingredients such as sweeteners, spices, flavourings and sometimes eggs.
Chess pie is a dessert with a filling composed mainly of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and sometimes milk, characteristic of Southern United States cuisine.
Lemon ice box pie is an icebox pie consisting of lemon juice, eggs, and condensed milk in a pie crust, frequently made of graham crackers and butter. It is a variant of key lime pie; in both, the citric acidity sets the egg yolks, with minimal baking. There are also no bake versions.
A cream pie, crème pie, or creme pie is a type of pie filled with a rich custard or pudding that is made from milk, cream, sugar, wheat flour, and eggs and typically topped with whipped cream.
Fruit curd is a dessert spread and topping. It is usually made with citrus fruit, though may be made with other fruits. Curds are often used as spreads and as flavourings.
Flapper pie, or the forgotten Prairie pie, is a vanilla custard pie topped with meringue within a graham cracker crust.
A lemon tart is a dessert dish, a variety of tart. It has a pastry shell with a lemon flavored filling.
Buko pie, sometimes anglicized as coconut pie, is a traditional Filipino baked young coconut (malauhog) pie. It is considered a specialty in the city of Los Baños, Laguna located on the island of Luzon.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
Pie in American cuisine has roots in English cuisine and has evolved over centuries to adapt to American cultural tastes and ingredients. The creation of flaky pie crust shortened with lard is credited to American innovation.
