Know how I usually pit cherries? In my mouth, on the way into my belly. Around here we gobble them straight from the bowl; they’re gone too quickly for any other use.
But horror of horrors, I brought home a not-so-good batch from the farmersâ market. I wonât say it was bad since in my book thereâs no such thing as a bad batch of cherries, but they werenât suitable for eating out of hand. Clearly, something had to be done.
Iâm not big on single-use gadgets, so Iâve never owned a cherry pitter. (Plus, yâknow, that whole I use my mouth thing.) But I do own a set of cake-decorating tips, including the handy-dandy size-18 star tip you see here. With it, I pitted a quart of cherries in about 10 minutes.
In case itâs not obvious how this works:
- Place the star tip inside a small bowl, to catch any juices. Have another small bowl ready for the pits, plus a larger bowl for the pitted cherries.
- Pull the stem from a cherry and place it, stem-side down, on the jagged edge of the star tip. Push down gently until you feel the pit, then give it a little more force until the pit pops up through the cherry.
- Transfer the pit to the empty small bowl, and the cherry to the larger bowl. Once youâre done, pour any juices accumulated in the pitting-bowl into the cherry bowl.
Ta-da! See, wasnât that easy? Theyâre not beauty cherries, since youâre busting the pit through the bottom, but when youâre cooking cherries (or using them for popsicles, as I did), beauty donât matter a bit.
I should add: If you don’t have a star tip, any pastry tip with a decent-sized round opening would work. I’ve also heard of people using chopsticks, drinking straws, bobby pins, and paperclips. There’s a whole world of cherry-pitter hacks out there.
What’s your favorite method? And perhaps more importantly, what’s your favorite thing to do with all those pitted cherries?
Mind blown. Life improved. Thank you.
Any time, Monique!
Last spring (I’m in CA) we picked something like 18 lbs of cherries. It completely filled a giant bucket and when I got home my bottom crisper drawer of the refrigerator. I used the beer bottle/chopstick method for my first pie. Empty beer bottle either on cutting board or in shallow bowl for the minimal juices. Center cherry on top of bottle. Poke a chopstick through it. The pit will go into your bottle with minimal juice splatter. I have to say though, after that first pie I ordered an OXO cherry pitter. I went on to make brandied cherries, cherry liquor, another cherry pie, cherry chocolate scones, etc, etc. My absolute favorite recipe though was the roasted cherry goat cheese ice cream. Amazing.
Whoa. Eighteen pounds of cherries. I think I’d be tempted to dump em out on the bed and roll around in em, like dollar bills đ
Love cherries! I did a week’s worth of ideas to work with cherries for the recent blogathon. A cherry pitter is just a genius piece of kitchen equipment.
Best,
Alice
http://herbinkitchen.com/2013/06/01/june-is-busting-out-all-over/