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As snowfall in Boston reached record-breaking city totals for the most snow seen in a seven-day period, Key West chef David Sloan brought a hint of sunshine to South Station Thursday afternoon.
In an hour-long process that drew the attention of thousands of attendees and travelers, Sloan made one of the world’s largest Key lime pies, complete with 200 pounds of graham crackers, 55 gallons of sweetened condensed milk and 5,760 yellow Key limes.
Though the primary ingredients of a Key lime pie include condensed milk, egg yolks and Key lime juice, the egg was taken out of Thursday’s super-sized recipe, making it possible for the graham cracker crumbs and condensed milk to be shipped from the Florida Keys to Boston in 5-gallon buckets.
Sloan, author of “The Ultimate Key Lime Pie Cookbook,” has been passionate about Key lime pie since moving to the Florida Keys at age 16 and discovering that his new home was the birthplace of the dessert.
“I’m passionate about things that I know,” he said. “So I started backtracking the history of it to find out who made the first Key lime pie … And Key lime pie is the first, one of the earliest desserts, that is from the United States.”
Though Sloan and his fellow Key West chef, Marky Pierson, had planned to make the world’s largest Key lime pie — a pie 9 feet in diameter that they’ve already broken a world record with — the bakers’ plans were changed when snow made transportation a problem.
“The 9-foot pie pan got caught in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,” Sloan said. “It got snowed in, so it didn’t arrive, so yesterday, we scrambled. We made another pie pan. This one is actually 8 feet.”
While Sloan and Pierson used long, black paddles to smooth out the final touches on their 8-foot, 1,000-pound pie, hundreds of people in South Station began to form a line around the serving table, hoping to get their hands on one of the 2,000 servings expected.
Helen Denham, 46, heard about the record-breaking pie while she was in Florida, but as a Watertown resident, she wanted to take advantage of the proximity and see the pie firsthand.
“I’ve seen everything, putting the crumbs on, crumbling the [graham cracker] balls up,” she said. “I just want to jump in there. It looks like sand to me, and after all this snow, I’m liking it.”
Sam Chase, a 19-year-old freshman at Emerson College, heard about the South Station pie through a professor and decided to check out the hype with a few friends.
“It’s a really good marketing … tactic, especially for people who want to get more towards the heat, aka Florida and not in freezing, cold Boston,” he said. “This was really cool, and who wants to pass up free Key lime pie?”
Hilary Ippolito and Lyndsay Whitehurst, two colleagues who were enjoying the Key lime pie on their lunch breaks, said the ingredients didn’t look appealing when they were coming out of the buckets, but the pie ultimately exceeded their expectations.
“It must make a difference to have actual Key limes in that and not just lime juice,” said Whitehurst, 26, of Jamaica Plain. “It’s a good balance too. The custard is tart like it’s supposed to be and then the crust balances in the sweetness. The texture, it’s really good.”
Ippolito, 24, of Jamaica Plain, said the graham cracker chunks and condensed milk looked “nasty” in the buckets, but the pie tasted much better than it originally looked.
“I would say I’ve eaten a lot of Key lime pies,” she said. “I couldn’t always tell you if it was objectively of high quality, but I can tell you if it tastes good, and I can confidently say this is delicious.”
Former Editor-in-Chief. I'm addicted to The Daily Free Press, and I thrive on coffee, journalism, and jars of Nutella.
