Mini Cherry Pies

I recently had a hankerin' for some cherries. I am not usually a cherry kind of girl, but when they're in season I'll indulge in a pound or two. If you get a perfectly ripe cherry, you'll get a perfectly sweet and spicy flavor - too soon and it will be tart (not my favorite), too late, well it will just be too late.

After gorging myself, I decided that I needed to do something else with them. What I wound up with was a variation on (or very much inspired by) apple crisp.

Mini Cherry Pies
Makes approximately 6 mini pies

• 1 cup cherries, pitted
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 6 - 8 tablespoons vegan butter

First, pit your cherries. I've heard that cherry pitters can make things go a bit faster, but just cutting them out with a knife works too. What I did was slice each cherry in half from the top to bottom, then open it up and pry the pit out with my fingers.

Once you have all of the cherries pitted you can mix a couple of teaspoons of sugar with them, but it is not necessary.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (I used my toaster oven). Mix together the remainder of your ingredients (dry first, then incorporating the butter). Press a small amount into each muffin round of a greased muffin pan, making a pie crust of sorts. Make sure that you have some mixture leftover.

Place your muffin pan into the oven and bake for about 10 minutes. When you take it out the crust will have puffed up, but take a spoon and press each back down.

Take your cherries and put some in each of the crusts.

I wound up with almost too many cherries, so you may have to get creative to make sure that they will all fit. Remember that as they bake they will sink a little bit, so more is usually better.

Once all of your crusts are filled, sprinkle the remainder of your crust mixture on top of the cherries.

Put in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, monitoring after about 10 minutes to make sure that the top doesn't burn.

I'll warn you - these are a little bit of a challenge to take out of the pan, but I found a spoon to be pretty helpful. Surprisingly these stayed intact for the most part, so if you have to do a little extra coaxing they probably won't break apart.

You can serve with some vegan vanilla ice cream and some of your leftover fresh cherries (if you have any, of course).

These were quite good. I think it would have been easier to just make a cherry crisp, but then it wouldn't have been as cute, and I probably wouldn't have wound up with as much crisp/crust.

So that's the second mini dessert/breakfast I've made - the other being mini apple pies. Any other mini ideas?! :)