Frozen lemon pie, cornmeal-shortbread crust, blueberry compote

With only 3 ingredients in the filling and a tender shortbread press-in crust, this is the easiest hot-weather dessert

A golden, buttery, gluten-free cornmeal crust with a tart lemon cream filling and summery blueberry compote. This frozen pie makes an ideal make-ahead dessert for hot days.

Hello!

I’ve been wanting to make a frozen pie this month in time for hot summer days, and I was thinking about all of the ice cream pies we made at Tartine Manufactory using our soft-serve machine. The pies were gorgeously swirled with seasonal ice cream or sorbet flavors mixed with fior di latte, or “flower of milk”, and became a mainstay of our menu and hard to keep in stock in the summer months.

If you don’t have a soft-serve machine at home, making ice cream pie isn’t so easy or fast and I don’t love buying pre-made ice cream and pouring it into a crust, but with this recipe, you don’t need an ice-cream maker to get a creamy-smooth, light filling that has the texture of freshly churned cream.

The trick that makes this filling thicken and taste so good is partly the science behind Key lime pie, part parfait technique (the French frozen dessert made by combining whipped cream and cooked yolks and sugar): combining sweetened condensed milk with an acid like lemon or lime juice naturally thickens it, similar to making a fresh cheese. Folding that mixture with softly whipped cream aerates the filling and makes it smooth, creamy, and ice-cream-like.

Make sure to temper the pie at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving to make slicing easier and to ensure the filling softens a bit.

The cornmeal-shortbread crust comes together quickly, presses in, and bakes in 20 minutes, and has a perfect, classic, sandy texture that contrasts nicely with the creamy filling.

Note on cornmeal for crust: I process my cornmeal in a blender to make it finer since medium-ground cornmeal will be too gritty in a frozen crust—it still maintains just enough grit to read as cornmeal, but has a much nicer texture in a cookie crust. If there’s too little cornmeal in your blender to properly process, try adding more to the blender and measure after blending.

Cornmeal shortbread pressed into tart form, baked and cooling shell, whole pie with blueberry compote, slice of frozen pie