About This Atlantic Beach Pie Recipe
If you’re looking for a quick and easy lemon dessert, this Atlantic Beach pie recipe is for you! Atlantic Beach pie is similar to key lime pie since it is also a pie made from a crunchy cookie crust filled with a creamy, tangy, citrusy filling.
However, Atlantic Beach pie uses lemons instead of key limes, and saltine crackers instead of graham crackers. My version of the recipe swaps the saltine crackers for Nonni’s lemon biscotti.
This post has been sponsored by Nonni’s. I received product and compensation, but all opinions are my own.
For more effortless homemade pie recipes on Hummingbird High, check out my Pies and Tarts Recipe collection! Popular recipes include this 15-Minute Stand Mixer Pie Crust Recipe and this Quick and Easy Rhubarb Custard Pie Recipe.
A Word From My Sponsor
Recently, my sponsor Nonni’s asked if I would be interested in hosting a Dip and Donate Party to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is a non-profit that helps fund research to find a cure for childhood cancer. All I needed to do was invite friends and family over for lemony drinks and nibbles, all in exchange for a small donation to Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
I was stoked. I’m always down to entertain for a good cause! I immediately started planning the menu with all my best lemon recipes. My menu focused on drinks and desserts you could eat by hand like cookies and cakelets, all centered around this pie.
- {Drinks} Sparkling Cucumber Basil Lemonade
- {Drinks} Thyme Lemonade
- {Cakelets} Lemon, Lavender and Earl Grey Mini Cakes and Petit Fours
- {Cakelets} Mini Sour Cream Lemon Cakes with Beet Glaze
- {Cookies} Raspberry Lemon Lofthouse Cookies
- {Cookies} Tangy Meyer Lemon Sugar Cookies
- {Showstopper} Atlantic Beach Pie!!!
I hosted my party this past Saturday, February 15—just in time for International Childhood Cancer Day. But you can participate anytime you want, too! For every social post with the tags @NonnisFoods, @AlexsLemonade, and #DipandDonate between now and the end of the year, Nonni’s will donate $1 per social share to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. Be sure to tag me on Instagram too if you make any of my lemon recipes above
Ingredients For The Pie
Now that I’ve convinced you to make Atlantic Beach pie, here are the key ingredients in the recipe worth chatting about:
Nonni’s Limone Biscotti
Although traditional Atlantic Beach pie is made with a cracker or saltine crust, I found those crusts to be salty and distracting from the Atlantic Beach pie’s filling. I decided instead to swap out the saltines for a more delicate-flavored cookie like biscotti.
But between you and me, I hate making biscotti at home since it’s a bit of a time-consuming process: not only do you need to make the cookie dough and shape it into biscotti, you then need to bake the cookies TWICE to get biscotti’s signature crunch and texture. It’s one of the few baked goods I’d rather buy at the store.
My favorite brand is Nonni’s; their biscotti is rich in flavor, crunchy in texture, relatively low calorie (only 110 calories per biscotti!), and made with real, wholesome ingredients like eggs, butter, and sugar. They also come in different varieties like Salted Caramel, Turtle Pecan, and Toffee Almond. For my Atlantic Beach pie recipe, I used Nonni’s Limone Biscotti to complement the Atlantic Beach pie’s lemon filling.
Lemons
Traditional Atlantic Beach pie recipes can vary in the citrus they use in the recipe—some exclusively use lemon juice, while others use a mix of lemon and lime juice. While I tried the mix, I found that it wasn’t that different from key lime pie (it was pretty tasty though). I wanted my Atlantic Beach pie recipe to be a distinctly “Atlantic Beach pie,” so I decided to stick with all lemon juice in my recipe.
As a result, this recipe uses both fresh lemon zest AND fresh lemon juice to make the filling. Although it’s much easier to buy pre-squeezed lemon juice at the store (which, in a pinch, I definitely won’t judge you for because I know how time consuming it can be to prep fruit), the freshly squeezed stuff will ultimately make your pie taste more fresh and flavorful. While it’s important to strain out the seeds from the juice, don’t worry too much about straining out the pulp from your juice—that’ll give the pie more flavor, too.
Fresh Whipped Cream
As I mentioned before, traditional Atlantic Beach pie recipes were made with a meringue topping. However, I found that the meringue and lemon filling together were too sweet; I much preferred Bill Smith’s variation with whipped cream instead.
Although you can use whipped cream from a can, the pie will last a lot longer in the fridge if you whip the cream at home yourself. Canned whipped cream tends to deflate after an hour or so, dissolving into a weird white puddle in the middle of your pie. Homemade whipped cream, on the other hand, takes only about 5 minutes to make and can actually stay whipped for more than 48 hours if done right.
Best Recipe Tips
Making The Recipe Fit Your Schedule
- Although this pie comes together fairly quickly, you’ll need to plan ahead and make it the day before you’re planning on serving it—the filling needs to chill for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight. Make the whipped cream and garnish the pie right before serving to ensure that the whipped cream is at its fluffiest and the biscotti cookies are at their crunchiest, too.
Prepping The Cookie Crumbs
- To make Nonni’s Limone Biscotti crumbs, use a digital scale to weigh out as many biscotti cookies as needed to match the weight listed in the recipe (if you don’t have a digital scale, the you’ll need approximately 6 ½ Nonni’s Limone Biscotti cookies—don’t discard the remaining ½ cookie, you can use it to garnish the pie like I did!). Use a food processor to pulse the crackers into fine crumbs.
Pro Baking Tips and Techniques
- Use a glass or ceramic bowl to make the lemon filling. A metal bowl will react with the lemon juice, giving the filling a noticeable metallic taste.
- When making whipped cream, recipes often instruct you to whip the cream to specific textures like “soft peaks” and “firm peaks.” The best way to determine the cream’s texture is to do a test with a whisk: Dip the tip of the whisk (or the whisk attachment) into the whipped cream, remove it, and completely turn it upside down. If the cream is too soft, it will slide off the whisk, and you’ll need to keep whisking. If the cream has a cloudlike structure, with peaks that lose their shape, you’re at the “soft peaks” stage. Stop here—this is where you want to be for my Atlantic Beach pie recipe!
- If you follow me on Instagram and saw my Instagram Stories on how to make this recipe, you’ll notice that after chilling the pie, I decorated the pie’s edges with more cookie crumbs. This is NOT a requirement and is just to make the pie look extra pretty; the recipe below does not include the step. But if you’re interested in styling your pie in the same way I did, you’ll need to make an extra half-batch of cookie crumbs by halving the recipe for the crust below. Instead of pressing the crumbs down into a pie plate, simply spread them evenly over a parchment-lined sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes at 350°F to toast them
Get the Recipe: Atlantic Beach Pie Recipe
Ingredients
For the Biscotti Crust
- 1 ½ cups (5.25 ounces) Nonni's Limone Biscotti crumbs (see baker's notes)
- 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter, melted
- Pinch of kosher salt
For the Atlantic Beach Pie Filling
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 4 large egg yolks
- Zest of 2 large lemons
- Pinch of kosher salt
- ⅔ cup (5.35 ounces) strained freshly squeezed lemon juice (see baker’s notes)
For the Whipped Cream
- 1 cup (8 ounces) very cold heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar, sifted if lumpy
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For Garnish
- Nonni’s Limone Biscotti
- Flaky sea salt
Instructions
Day 1: Make the Crust, Filling, and Bake the Pie!
- First, make the crust: position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In a medium bowl, combine the Nonni’s Limone Biscotti crumbs, melted butter, and salt and toss with your fingers until the mixture looks like wet sand. Pour the mixture into a 9-inch pie pan and use a tart tamper or your hands to press it evenly over the bottom of the pan, all the way to the edges. (You can use the bottom of a coffee mug or heavy glass to pound the crumbs in place, too—you want to apply some pressure here so the crust holds its shape.)
- Bake for 12 minutes. The crust will look underbaked and feel soft to the touch when you remove it from the oven, but will firm up as it cools. If you find that the crust has slumped down the sides of the pan, use the back of a spoon to gently ease it back into place while it’s still warm. Cool the crust on a wire rack while you make the filling.
- Next, make the filling: keep the oven heated to 350°F.
- In a medium glass bowl, whisk together the condensed milk, egg yolks, lemon zest, and salt. Add the lemon juice and whisk until smooth. Pour the filling over the crust and use an offset spatula to smooth the top.
- Bake for 18 minutes, or until the edges of the pie are set but the center still wobbles slightly. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.
Day 2: Make the Whipped Cream and Serve!
- First, make the whipped cream: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the cream, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla. Whisk on medium-high until soft peaks form, about 3 minutes.
- Next, garnish the pie and serve: Spoon the whipped cream over the filling. Garnish with Nonni’s Limone Biscotti crumbs and pieces, and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. Serve immediately. The Atlantic Beach pie can be stored in the refrigerator, covered loosely with plastic wrap, for up to 2 days.
buy the book
Weeknight Baking:
Recipes to Fit your Schedule
Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
This was absolutely delicious! Everyone gave it a thumbs up…definitely a new favorite around here!
Have you tried freezing this pie?
Yes! Freeze it without the whipped cream topping (only make the whipped cream when ready to serve). After freezing, thaw in the refrigerator overnight before serving.
Absolutely delicious!! I brought this to my cousin’s house for the weekend and it was devoured in minutes! They made me promise to bring another one the next time I visit!