I'm trying to make a cherry cream pie and have seen the following recipe for this cream filling many times on the internet.
1 can (15 ounce; 1 1/3 cups) sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup whipping cream; whipped Combine sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, vanilla and almond extract. Stir until mixture thickens. Fold in whipped cream
I can not get this stuff thick enough to support a layer of pie filling. I've stirred and stirred with no effect. I even tried cooking it and that was too satisfactory either. Any ideas?
I was expecting some egg yolks, but there are none in your recipe. The original recipe for key lime pie has the following ingredients:
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup Key Lime Juice
You can see that it is very similar, except that it has egg yolks and omits the whipped cream. The acid and the yolk react to thicken the mixture. I think you have a couple of options. One would be to add the egg yolks. If you are afraid of eating raw eggs, look for pasteurized eggs. An alternative would be to bake the mixture for about 30 minutes at 350F or bring the mixture to 165F for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Of course, you would have to omit the whipped cream if you heat it.
Another option would be to beat in a couple of packages of cream cheese. I would try one package. If it doesn't seem stiff enough, then I would add the second. It will thicken somewhat upon refrigeration, but not a lot.
The third approach would be to add some modified food starch. If you have access to a restaurant supply or a GFS Marketplace, you can get a thickening agent like Nutrathick. Commercial thickening agents will work on hot or cold food. The more you add, the thicker the results.
The egg yolks in a properly made (left on the counter for a few hours) key lime pie are not precisely raw. Technically and chemically speaking they have been fully cooked.
They have not however been sterilized.
In north america (and probably much of western europe) you have about a
1 in 500,000 chance of salmonella in a given egg. The acid in the mixture won't kill all of it. A healthy person - even a child - will not contract salmonella from one bad egg in nearly all cases. Nearly all cases of salmonella poisoning occur when a large quantity of food is tainted and then grossly mishandled.
So, the wisdom goes, if it may be eaten by infants, the elderly, or anyone with a degraded immune system, maybe you should think about pasteurized eggs, or other pasteurization processes.
I know you know that, just wanted to make sure the OP and those who lurk quietly do as well.
Interestingly, there is one recorded case of salmonella poisoning that was traced to a baked potato. It was baked in a malfunctioning oven that was not heating to the ascribed temperature and then left on the counter for several hours before being added to a cafeteria batch of iirc potato salad.
I had the thought that perhaps the original recipe said "CoolWhip" rather than whipped cream. Not that I'm advocating any such thing, just been down that road before.
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