The Best Devices for Getting Rid of the Pits

The only thing you can gripe about with a cherry is the pit. You’ve got to get rid of that thing. Fortunately, someone invented the cherry pitter. Unfortunately, there are at least eight different models. So we set out to discover which one is best.

After three days, five pies and 12 pounds of cherries, we had a clear winner--and it was one of the least-expensive models we tried.

Basically, all cherry pitters use the same simple mechanism: The cherry is positioned in a cradle, then pierced by a rod that pushes out the pit. The best pitters maintain the integrity of the cherry: The pit is removed cleanly and the cherry stays whole.

Six of the pitters we tried were hand-held gadgets that press out the pits one at a time. Two were box models that sit on the countertop and let you feed in handfuls of cherries, then push them through a funnel and press out the pit with a pump action.

The box models seemed appealing at first--they were quicker and neater, since the pits dropped right into a container. But one of them--the Westmark ($39.65, at Surfas)--was so unstable that the top would not stay in place as it was used. The other model--the Leifheit Cherrymat ($39.95, at Sur La Table)--worked much better. It was the fastest way to pit cherries, but it did tend to mangle them in the process. (Split or torn cherries are no problem with something like jam, but would ruin a tart or open-faced pie.) There were other problems too: some pits dropped into the bowl along with the pitted cherries. Worse, when we served our pies, we discovered many cherries had slipped through the funnel unpitted.

Everyone in the test kitchen agreed that hand-held pitters were the way to go--you could be certain every cherry is pitted, and they didn’t take much longer to use than the box models.

But not all hand-helds are created equal. We quickly eliminated four of them. One didn’t have a spring mechanism in the grip, which made it difficult to manage and time-consuming. The handle on another was so wide that you couldn’t use it without feeling as if you were using a grip strengthener. Some were made with flimsy materials and destined to a short life, others left the fruit looking broken and battered.

The Deluxe Cherry Pitter by Norpro ($10.25, at Surfas) had a comfortable grip and worked well. Its one drawback: The pit didn’t always drop through the opening in the cradle, and pulling it out slowed us down.

The Leifheit Chrome Cherry Pitter had none of these problems. It is a sturdy little pitter, with a comfortable handle and a thumb indentation that lets you get a firm grip. It reliably removed the pit every time, and left every cherry whole, without any part of the fruit wasted or torn. It was easy to clean, convenient to store in the gadget drawer and inexpensive ($11.95 at Crate and Barrel, $12.50 at Sur La Table and Williams Sonoma).

In the end, we had nothing to gripe about at all.