All the flavors of a bright and zesty key lime pie, in the form of homemade fudge! This recipe for Key Lime Fudge Bars is seriously citrusy, and so addictive!
In the last year or so I have developed an annoying tendency.
I have become one of those people who is convinced they have a life-threatening illness.
With every headache I convince myself that I have a brain tumor and wonder when my tumor grows if I will become a major genius like John Travolta did in Phenomenon.
With every ache in my knee I am doing research online on who is the best knee replacement surgeon in my area. Or really the whole country because no expense can be spared when I am in need of a life changing surgery.
My knuckles have been aching lately and I have convinced myself that I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. My husband laughed at me and said yeah, you’re 36…sometimes things just start to ache a little.
He doesn’t feed into my paranoia. Instead of playing along and acting concerned he just tells me to go for a walk and drink a glass of water. Like fresh air and H2O are gonna solve my problems. Ridiculous.
Watching Grey’s Anatomy also does not help, because there are some crazy medical situations that arise on that show only fueling my internal self diagnosis arsenal.
So the other day to get my mind off the cutting-edge eyeball transplant surgery that I will most certainly need, I decided to make fudge.
Of the key lime variety.
At least my brain is working.
I will warn you, though. This stuff is basically crack-fudge. I’m not kidding. The chance of you having high blood sugar after making and inevitable eating the entire pan is imminent. Real talk.
First make a yummy shortbread crust. Kind of unconventional for fudge, but trust me on this.
Then melt some white chocolate. I always use a double boiler for white chocolate because I am not a good microwaver.
While that’s melting, zest a few limes…
Then mix your melted chips, sweetened condensed milk and Key Lime juice together. Stir in your zest…
Now, if you are feeling fancy, reserve 1/4 cup of the white chocolate mix and tint it green to swirl in to the fudge.
Spread the uncolored mixture evenly over the crust and then swirl in the tinted.
Pop it in the fridge and let it set up for about 2-3 hours.
Cut it up when you’re ready to serve…
Out of control good. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.
Print
Key Lime Fudge Bars
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Chilling Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 7 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 17 minutes
- Yield: 24 pieces 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
All the flavors of a bright and zesty key lime pie, in the form of homemade fudge! This recipe for Key Lime Fudge Bars is seriously citrusy, and so addictive!
Ingredients
- 20 shortbread cookies, crushed (about 1 cup)
- 5 Tbsp salted butter, melted
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3 cups white chocolate chips
- 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
- 3 Tbsp Key lime juice
- zest of 4 Key Limes.
- green food coloring (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Line an 8×8 pan with foil.
- In a medium bowl combine crushed cookies, melted butter and granulated sugar.
- Press evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 6-7 minutes until edges start to golden.
- In a double boiler melt white chocolate chips. When just melted remove from heat and stir in sweetened condensed milk and Key Lime juice.
- Stir in zest.
- *Optional, reserve 1/4 cup fudge mixture and with a small amount of green food coloring, tint the reserved mixture and set aside.
- Spread the un-colored fudge mixture into prepared pan. Then drizzle reserved mixture on top and swirl in with a knife.
- Place in refrigerator to set, 2-3 hours.
- Cut into squares.
Notes
This is a soft fudge, and although you don’t have to, I stored my in fridge.
adapted from Sugar Cooking
Keywords: homemade fudge, how to make fudge, key lime bars
I’m throwing a surprise party for my husband and I absolutely have to make this! Whenever I have to make something for other people, I always go to your page. 🙂 Only because, you know, your recipes are just too awesome for me to not inhale within a few hours. Anyway, I don’t know if I can find shortbread here. What do you think about using your meltaway shortbread recipe as the base? Are those the right texture?
What you easily sub in here are graham crackers with no problem!
Haha. If only those existed over here! I live in a baking wasteland. I’ll just make some shortbread. I’ll let you know how it goes on Saturday. 🙂 I’m so tempted to make it now, but I just know I’ll eat it all…
The beautiful green colour swirled through your fudge had my attention immediately. I am a lover of all things lime. I am teaching my daughter to cook so naturally we are starting with desserts. This beautiful recipe will be on the menu this weekend. Thank you so much.
This looks wonderful and I will be testing this out! Have you ever tried to double the recipe? Did it work? Thanks!
I haven’t ever doubled the recipe… let me know if you try it!
One more note. I stink at melting chocolate. Even with a double boiler I thought I ruined it. I went ahead and cooked the SC milk in it for a while until smooth and it was perfect.
GOod tip!