Saskatoon Sour Cream Pie with Crumble Topping

 

This is a pie that I have made before using a mixture of strawberries and raspberries. You could really use any berry and it would turn out great. We have an abundance of saskatoon berries at my house from our bushes and the bushes along the trails we've been picking through all summer, so I've been putting them in everything. I love how bright purple the saskatoons make the pie filling! Don't be thrown off by the use of sour cream in this pie - it creates a creamy texture and almost cheesecake-like flavour. 

Ingredients:

1 unbaked 9" pie crust - Use my perfect pie crust recipe for a great homemade pie crust!

5 cups fresh saskatoon berries - If using frozen berries then thaw them beforehand

1 cup sour cream - If you don't have sour cream you can substitute plain yogurt

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp. corn starch

Crumble Topping Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small cubes

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine the white sugar, flour, and corn starch. Stir in the sour cream until no lumps remain. Place the saskatoons in a medium saucepan over medium heat on the stovetop. Add in the sour cream mixture and heat for 7-8 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and set aside while you prepare the pie crust and crumble topping.

Roll our your pastry and place in a 9" pie dish (a glass dish works the best so that you can monitor how the crust is baking and tell when it's done).

In a medium bowl, combine the crumble topping ingredients and cut together using a pastry blender or two butter knives, until the mixture is crumbly and no large chunks of butter remain.Set aside.

Pour the saskatoon berry and sour cream mixture into the prepared pie crust. Evenly sprinkle the crumble topping over the pie filling.

Bake at 450 degrees F for 15 minutes on a bottom oven rack, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F, move pie to the middle rack, and continue to bake for another 35-40 minutes, until the fruit is tender and the pie crust is golden brown. Depending on your oven, you may just want to keep the pie on the bottom oven rack or a lower rack so that the crust bakes all the way through. I find with my oven I have to do this because the filling is so liquid-y that the middle of the pie crust will still be a little raw if I just keep it in the middle rack. If the crumble topping begins to get too brown then cover it with a piece of aluminum foil for the remainder of the baking time.

Cool on a wire rack, then chill for 1-2 hours in the refrigerator before serving.

 

*Recipe by Brooke McMillan