If you’ve ever pitted cherries by hand with one of those single clamp-style cherry pitters, the above picture of a whole big bowl of pitted cherries might well make you wince in sympathy for the way my hand must be cramping. Well, don’t bother. There’s a new tool in town!
Let me introduce you to the Progressive Cherry-It Pitter. It’s a huge improvement over the single-cherry pitter such as the one seen right.
The old style pitter does ONE cherry at a time. It has a single dull-tipped pusher. The cherry sits in the little divot, and then you squeeze down on the handle, rather like one of those hand-grip exercisers, and pitted one single cherry. Juice is guaranteed to splatter everywhere, and there are chances of flying pits, as well, as they leave the pitter at high velocity. Well, I was in the middle of making homemade cherry preserves when mine broke. The little pusher broke right off and stayed planted in a cherry. I pulled it out and hammered it back in, but it kept coming out. It was time to retire the pitter.
In looking for a new one, I found the Progressive Cherry-It Pitter. Four cherries at once? And for only a couple of dollars more for the old hand-cramper? Well, sign me up!
The blades on the Cherry-It pitter are SUPER sharp. Far, far sharper than the ones on an OXO brand pitter, so be CAREFUL. That said, they’re also fully retracted behind the little panel there, so you should be just fine unless you stick your finger in and press, or aren’t careful while washing.
The Cherry-It also holds four cherries at once. The tray is reversible and has four big spots and four small. I just used the big size as my cherries varied in size. The small side is also reportedly good for olives. If you look closely, you’ll notice I stuck my cherries in stems and all, and you can see them in the bottom of the clear tray. Most of my cherries had very short stems, some less than half an inch which were hard to get ahold of, so I decided to see if the Cherry-It would eject the stems, too. It did!
To operate, you just place four cherries in the slots, then press down. Voila – four cherries, done! The pits (and in my case, the stems) get left in the clear collection tray at the bottom. Because the lid closes securely over the cherries, there’s no splattering of juice all over your counters, either. When the bottom gets full, just lift the tray the cherries sit out, dump out the pits, and continue.
The pitter breaks down into 3 parts. The tray lifts out and then the top portion pulls up off the hinge. All three parts are top-rack dishwasher safe for easy cleanup.
Just how fast and efficient is it, though? Well, you see that bowl of cherries up there? How about a closer look, hmmm?
That’s right. That’s a 12 cup bowl. That’s 4.25 pounds of cherries and I pitted them all in 30 minutes – and that was even with stopping to take pictures when I realized that I really had to share this product. Once cherries are pitted you can make them into cherry preserves, cherry pies, or just lay them out on a baking sheet and freeze them before putting them in a plastic freezer bag or container to save for when fresh cherries are out of season.