Take 8 cups of ripe peaches and chop them into small chunks with the skins on. I used 4 Colorado peaches.
Stir in 1 1/3 cups sugar, 6T flour, 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and let rest for 20-30 minutes so that the juice can be released and begin to form a syrup. It goes from looking like this:
to this:
Once the juices have come out, place a strainer over a large pot and place the mixture in the strainer. The syrup will fall into the pan. This may take awhile if the syrup is already pretty thick.
Once the liquid has strained through, bring the liquid to a boil over medium heat (be careful it can caramelize on the bottom of the pan). Reduce the heat and let it cook another 10 minutes or so until it thickens. Stir the peaches back in and remove the mixture from heat. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 3 tablespoons of butter and let cool to room temp.
While the filling was cooking, I cut out my mini-crusts. I used a boxed crust from the grocery store and used a pitcher from our wedding to cut out the circles. I then tucked them into the muffin tin used to cook the pies.
At this point I refrigerated both components and went to class. When I got home, I filled the crusts with the filling and placed small strips of crust over the tops of the pies.
Bake the mini-pies at 425 for about 15 minutes. Our oven cooks hot so it only took 12 minutes for ours to be done, so be sure to check them often. I made 12 pies and still have about half of the filling left - I just didn't get enough crusts! I think we'll probably use it as ice cream topping.... drool. :)
