4 OVEN-FREE ICEBOX PIES TO BEAT THE HEAT.

Keep your cool this summer with easy pies

Iceboxes may be deader than dinosaurs, but the pies those antiquated appliances inspired are certainly alive and well. With summer’s scorching arrival, now’s the time to eschew the oven and get one of these sweet treats into your fridge or freezer.

This week we’re presenting a quartet of icebox pies — the term is typically used to describe any pie that isn’t baked — perfect for the palates of South Texas.

On the fun and fruity side, we have a bright, tangy lemon curd pie and a tequila-spiked margarita pie. On the more rich and sultry end of the spectrum, we’ve amped up a classic chocolate icebox pie with coffee, and transformed a can of dulce de leche into a chilled cinnamon bomb of a dessert.

Icebox pies generally require very little time to prepare, but

that’s not to say there isn’t any technique or skill involved. Keeping a few tips in mind will help ensure your next effort is a success.

For starters, you’ll need a crust robust enough to support a payload of creamy filling. Pastry crusts are common in many types of icebox pies, but in the spirit of keeping cool, we’ve opted instead for no-bake, crumb-based crusts. Ours are made with a generous dose of melted butter, which helps the crust firm up when refrigerated for about 20 minutes before filling.

Graham crackers are the most common base for this type of crust, but cookies also work well. We used a stack of Canelitas cinnamon cookies and a fistful of pecans to make a crust for our Dulce de Leche Icebox Pie. You could easily do the same with Oreos, vanilla wafers, gingersnaps or most other cookies, as long as they aren’t too moist.

And there’s no shame in using a store-bought crust. We did just that in our Chocolate Coffee Icebox Pie. Those crusts tend to be quite rigid and slow to absorb moisture, giving your pie the support it needs to last a few days in the refrigerator.

Icebox pies don’t have much of a shelf life, but there are a few things you can do to extend that.

For one, wait until serving before applying a whipped cream garnish. Whipped cream, whether homemade or out of a can, will go flat and weepy fairly quickly on top of a pie, especially in the sweaty Texas heat. Our Lemon Curd Icebox Pie will keep for four to five days without getting soggy if you wait until the last minute to dab it with whipped cream.

Another option for stretching your pie’s lifespan is to begin with a recipe that uses the freezer instead of the refrigerator. Our Frozen Margarita Icebox Pie isn’t made with ice cream, but the boozy lime-flavored filling takes on that texture after a few hours at zero.

If, by some odd chance, you and your family don’t demolish the whole pie, there are ways to keep the leftovers at least somewhat presentable. If you don’t have a dedicated pie storage container, make a tent out of foil to cover the remaining slices. It’ll stay off the peaky ripples of creamy filling, unlike plastic wrap.

Keep cool this summer, y’all. It’s easy as pie.

Paul Stephen / Staff To cut the time needed to make Lemon Curd Icebox Pie, use a store-bought graham cracker crust. Recipe on Page E8.