Miniature Sour Cherry Crumbles

A few weeks ago my friend Bea decided to go through her kitchen and give away some of the items she no longer used. She invited me over to see if there was anything she was ready to give up that I might want. Well, as they say "one woman's trash is another's treasure". Among the things I happily took home were a large oval baking dish, two ironstone bowls, an Italian vase, and six little tin pie pans.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a pie maker. I simply do not have the ability to make a great crust despite my many efforts to do so. But those tins were just so cute. I wanted them to have a good loving home. And, wouldn't you know it--I soon found a perfect use for them.

Faced with the abundance of sour cherries in our orchard this past week, I made miniature cherry crisps in four of the tiny pie pans and froze them for what I thought would be some nice desserts during the colder months. I envisioned my husband and me sitting on the floor by the fire, personal pie pans in hand, happily recalling what a wonderful summer it had been as we dug into the delicious crisps while watching the snow falling outside. So much for that plan! We just ate the last of them last night. I should have know that they wouldn't last very long given my weakness for desserts.

I made this crumble topping with all whole wheat flour instead of the usual white/whole wheat mix. Both Robert and I liked the slightly heartier texture of the topping and we agreed that we felt a bit more virtuous eating the crumbles especially since they were topped with thickened vanilla yogurt. You'll find the recipe for  my Miniature Sour Cherry Crumbles with Vanilla Yogurt Cream in the Summer Recipes Section of this site.