I have discussed before my passion for canning, especially jams. Well, I have a new vintage tool that made preparing tart cherries so easy and so fun. Let me praise the powers of the 16 Cherry Stoner.
When you have twenty pounds of fresh tart cherries from Blossom Hill Orchard to process, you need a quicker way than manually removing the stones (also called pits) from the cherries. After last year’s canning season where it took me almost ten hours to pit these cherries (I know because I nearly completed all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies), I went in search of a faster and easier solution.
My research lead me to stories and videos about vintage cherry stoners and how much easier and faster they could process tart cherries for jam making. So, over the winter I researched and purchased one on Ebay. I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to try my new vintage kitchen gadget, and the time was now this weekend. All the recommendations were true!
This is a 16 Cherry Stoner and it is magical. You crank the handle and the cherries and juice drop out the bottom while the pits fall out the far end. I was able to process all my cherries, make two batches of jam, freeze two gallons of cherries, and make a cobbler in less time that it took me last year just to remove the stones from the cherries! And I have not had a single pit in any of the jams or the cobbler I made.
If you use fresh tart cherries for cobblers and jams and do not have a cherry stoner, then go to Ebay now and find one for your kitchen. If you like to make pretty cherry pies with your tart cherries, then the cherry stoner is likely not for you, as it mangles the cherries quite a bit. For jams and cobblers, that taste and look just fine that way. For pies, the cherries will not have that beautiful spherical shape.
