Maybe you have guessed this already… but I have a plethora of saskatoon berries at my house! My Dad – bless him – has a secret spot for these local “prairie fruit” and brought me several bags of these lovely purple berries. I’ve canned them, sauced them, chutney’d them… and now I’m pieing them. (And I still have some left!!)

This is a lovely recipe. It’s a combination of a few different family recipes but the result is a lovely tangy homemade lemon custard which pairs nicely with the saskatoon sauce topping, all brought together with a flakey, tender, traditional pie crust.

I like to start by making the two fillings, the lemon and the saskatoon, and then letting them cool while I work on the pie shell.

Tangy Lemon Pie Filling

1 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of cornstarch
1/2 cup of lemon juice
4 egg yolks
1 cup of hot water
2 tablespoons butter

In a heavy saucepan, combine 1 cup of sugar and cornstarch; add in lemon juice.

In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks. Whisk into the lemon mixture. Gradually add water and stir constantly.

Cook over medium heat. Bring to a boil and keep stirring while mixture thickens.

Remove from heat. Add in butter and stir till fully mixed in. I like to pour into a glass bowl and cover with saran until needed.

Saskatoon Sauce

3 cups of saskatoons
1 cup of water
2 tablespoons for cornstarch
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tsp of almond extract
2 tablespoons of lemon juice

In a large saucepan, combine the saskatoons and the water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Simmer for five minutes to soften the saskatoons. If you like, mash the saskatoons with a potato masher. I like to have some mashed and some whole.

In a separate bowl, mix cornstarch and sugar together making sure there are no lumps. Slowly add to the saskatoon mixture, keep stirring! Cook until thick and sauce is glossy. Add almond extract and lemon juice.

Remove from the heat. And again, I like to transfer to a new bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool till ready to use.

Pie Shell

2 cups of flour
3/4 tsp of salt
1 cup of crisco
1 egg
2 tbsp cold water
1 tbsp vinegar

Combine flour, salt and crisco in a large bowl. Use a pastry blender and mash up till crisco is pea size.

In a separate smaller bowl, beat the egg, and add in water and vinegar.

Pour into the flour mixture and mix with a fork just until combined.

This will make two bottom pie shells.

If you like, chill the pie shell pastry in the fridge to allow the crisco to firm up a bit.

Preheat over to 375 degrees.

When ready to roll out, sprinkle your rolling surface liberally with flour. Gently roll out half of the pie shell dough, lifting and turning the pastry as you go to make sure it doesn’t stick. When ready, line your pie shell. Make sure to crimp your edges to the outer edge of the pie plates so they don’t shrink too much when baking.

Bake for 20 minutes, watching carefully, until just slightly brown. Remove from the oven.

Pie Assembly…

You can fill the pie while the crust is still warm – in fact, its preferred.

Keep your oven still on 375 degrees.

Fill your pie shell with the lemon filling. Pop your pies back in the oven for 5 minutes, just to set up the lemon filling.

Remove from the oven (you can shut it off at this point).

Spread on top with a layer of the saskatoon sauce. Let cool several hours, or overnight, to fully set up.

Enjoy!