Taste of Tucson: An easy dessert with Mexican origins fits into a Southwest menu | Entertainment

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With the citrus season on the horizon, now is the time to meet the Carlota.

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Robin Mather Special for the Arizona Daily Star

I learned about lemon icebox cake while living in the Mississippi Delta. As a traditional favorite of the south, it required little to no cooking – a blessing on those blistering Delta days.

Typically made with a graham cracker crust, it was just a couple of eggs beaten into a can of sweetened condensed milk with a little lemon juice. I prefer to briefly bake the filled cake shell (because of the raw eggs), then top with whipped cream or meringue.

This year I learned that there is a similar Mexican dessert called Carlota. It doesn’t require cooking either, and with the citrus season approaching, it seems like a good time to prepare for it.

Both Carlota and Lemon Icebox Pie rely on the acidity of lemon juice to thicken sweetened condensed milk into a creamy custard. (And if you want, you can make a very good lemon ice cream by running this custard through your ice cream maker.)

Note, however, that lemons vary in the acidity of their juice, and if you’re lucky enough to have access to a Meyer lemon tree, you will definitely need more lemon juice than this recipe calls for because Meyer lemons are sweeter and less acidic than traditional ones Lemons.

I made this dessert with lime juice, but since limes are less acidic than lemons, you’ll need more lime juice than the recipe says. Using just one cup of lime juice will make the recipe “just not right,” as my ex-mother-in-law used to say.

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