12 lbs is a lot. It makes a lot of jam, but it also makes for black fingers. For 4 days I looked like a hardcore gardener. No one would have believed I can’t even keep basil alive, or that parsely wilts at my gaze, and my poor, poor strawberry plant never stood a chance.
But I’m a stellar jam-maker. And my black fingers were my war wounds. 3 hours later, I’d pitted all my cherries and I started researching cherry pitters for home canning.
Turns out there are a few well-respected kitchen gadgets that turn three hours of by-hand pitting into light work that doesn’t result in blackened hands. Note that sour cherries don’t stain, just bing or sweet cherries.
So if you’re not making jam I highly encourage you to just eat these things one by one, sucking the skin and flesh from the pit instead of doing it by hand. Even if you’re serving some of them with dessert, as I did a few days later (with biscotti, caramel custard and soft poached meringue), let your guests do the pitting themselves. The stems are cute anyway, and make the cherries easier to pick up. Win-win-win.
I made this recipe last year. It’s from David Leibowitz. It’s well-written. Go here. I can’t make it any better. I can, however, not follow it well. I wore white. That was a bad idea.
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