As cherries are still abundant in the market, I thought that instead of more recipes involving cherries this week, I’d share one of my new favorite kitchen tools with you: the OXO multi cherry pitter.
Last year, at the end of cherry season, I was weary of pitting my cherries one at a time with my little OXO hand-held cherry pitter. It works pretty well (although some pits are larger than the pitter will allow to push through it’s mechanism), but it was tedious; and given that I was purchasing several pounds of cherries at a time in order to freeze them for future use, it was taking way more time than I wanted to spend on it.
Enter the multi-cherry pitting tool! The first one I bought was a no-name tool I found on the internet last summer, at the end of cherry season. I didn’t use it until I bought my first cherries of the season this year. It was a hinged tool made of clear, hard plastic. The bottom of the tool had spots for six cherries, the upper had prongs to poke the pits out of the cherries below, and a tray beneath where the pits would be deposited that was not removable.
The first time I used it, I thought it was great! While it was not 100% effective (it left some pits in the cherries), it cut my processing time down by, like, 50% at least. I was totally impressed! However, by the end of the first batch of cherries, which admittedly was about 6 pounds, a piece of it broke off. The tool was still usable, but about halfway into the next batch, it shattered. The stress of the force needed to pit the cherries was too much for it.
Enter the OXO multi-cherry pitter!
This baby is GREAT. It’s everything that the first one was and robust enough to withstand the punishing force needed to pit this many cherries at once. It’s made of OXO’s signature sturdy white and rubberized black plastic, with a sturdy sprung hinge and the prongs on the upper side are deep enough to push through even the largest cherries.
And it has a removable tray that catches the pits.
As with every cherry pitter I’ve ever used, it is not 100% effective, and you have to be vigilant when slicing the cherries (or just eating them) to make sure you or your guests don’t crunch through a pit. But, overall, this pitter is great and cuts pitting time by about 50%–not too shabby!
I don’t even know what the washing instructions are, I just tossed it into the dishwasher like I do all my other OXO tools, and it washes up beautifully.
Conclusion? I definitely recommend the OXO multi-cherry pitter! Other than that you have to check for some pits, I would say that it’s about 90% efficient in pitting, it’s sturdy, faster and since I slice my cherries before I make something like a cobbler, pie, chutney or salsa, I feel like I’ll catch virtually any rogue pits.
Please note that I was not solicited for this review and I was not paid for it, nor was the tool supplied to me for a review–I bought it with my own money and all the opinions are my own.
Until next week,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
