Farmer’s Saskatoon Pie

We are very fortunate that we’ve got a few fruit trees on our property, two different plums in the front, and a pear in the back. And, both our neighbours and us have Saskatoon berry trees as well! We were able to harvest tons of berries (over 1.5 kg!) this week, and there was so much, I turned them into two pies.

I got the recipe out of the Duchess Bake Shop Cookbook. Making a pie from scratch, with hand-picked fruit, is quite laborious. My daughter and I had to use a ladder to reach all the fruit, and harvest 6 cups of berries for each pie.

Then, I had to make the pie dough. The recipe in the book makes enough for three single-shell pies. It requires chilling, then rolling, freezing, then blind-baking.

This filling is pre-cooked, so the berries had to go into a pot with water, lemon, sugar, flour, cornstarch and nutmeg. I typically use tapioca starch, as it keeps fillings clear, whereas cornstarch and flour can get cloudy. But, I stuck to the recipe, and it gelled up nicely. The recipe does not say to cool the filling, but I let it sit for about an hour.

The crumble topping has oatmeal and cinnamon, and I used a fork to smush all the butter bits as I couldn’t find my pastry blender. It bakes for a nice long time, and gets deeply browned.

What a delicious dessert! The pie dough, made with both butter and shortening, is flaky and rich. The filling holds together nicely, but is still juicy. It has subtle undertones of almond extract, which come from the berries themselves, and I don’t detect the nutmeg, which some people find very strong. Highly recommended, especially if you can get Saskatoons! I’ll be freezing the remaining fruit off the trees, for use later in the year.