Processing fruit every summer can be daunting. We all start out with the same ambition: We see the cherry branches dripping with red lobes and dream of an entire winter of cherry pies. We side-eye the apple tree, thinking this is the year we’re going to finally make apple cider. And clearly no one knows how many blackberries are required to make jam, because we all depart the you-pick fields with way too many.
What stands between our ambition and all those jams, pies, and cider is the actual processing. Luckily, there are tools to make it easier.
Process cherries in a second with this cherry pitter
When I became serious about cherries, I became serious about finding the right pitter. There are a few kinds on the market, including handheld models that pit one cherry at a time, and models that you load with seven or eight cherries and then clamp down. And they work well, too. But so far, nothing has compared to the cherry pitter of dreams: the Leifheit Cherry Pitter.
This model works by continuously loading a small hopper, and then punching a lever, which shoots the pit into a container below and the pitted cherry flesh, still in one piece, into a waiting bowl. It worked 99% of the time across tiny cherries and big guys. The real benefit is how fast it goes: I processed about sixty pounds of cherries in an hour. Just imagine a constant “bam bam bam bam bam!” Even if you’re only pitting a dozen cherries, this tool is small enough, easy enough to use, and fast enough to clean that you’d still reach for it. It breaks down easily for your dishwasher and storage.
I also process olives once a year, and it did a similarly fast and efficient job with those, keeping the flesh totally intact, and rarely missing a pit, even with the olives’ tougher flesh.
The three “fruit tools” I absolutely swear by:
Processing apples can actually be fun with the right peeler/corer
Even with the best peelers on the market, peeling apples or potatoes is a recipe for self-harm and boredom. Even if you manage to not nick yourself with your peeler, you’ll still be stuck peeling over a sink and then soaking apples, and coring, and slicing them. Imagine if you could do all three—peel, core, and perfectly slice in under a minute—with one tool. Enter: the apple peeler!
You clamp the peeler onto your work surface, and then load an apple onto the prong, and then simply crank the turnstile. The apple will get peeled in one highly satisfying, long ribbon of apple skin. At the same time, it will make a perfect spiral cut to the apple, and when you pull the apple off the tool, you’ll find the core left behind.
Sure, the time you’ll spend peeling is cut down, but you can also achieve perfect looking pies and tarts using the uniform slices created.
Best of all, you can use these tools on potatoes, carrots, cukes, and—my favorite—daikon radish. With the daikon, you can remove the peel and then just continue peeling it, creating long spirals of radish for salads.
A food mill means never having to pick seeds out of your teeth ever again
No matter how you blend or chop most small fruit, you will end up with seeds in what you make. Those tiny raspberry, strawberry, or tomato seeds break up an otherwise silky smooth jam, smoothie, or sauce.
The most efficient way to remove seeds (and anything else that isn’t blended completely) is a food mill. These stainless steel tools work a little like a sieve or colander, but with a crank and blade that continually force the food through the holes. If you keep turning the crank, eventually everything that’s gone through the mill will be perfectly smooth, and what will be left behind is just cores and seeds.
Food mills come with different-sized screens you can change out, depending on what you’re putting through them. Tomatoes can use a larger screen, for example, and raspberries a smaller one.
Turning the crank is simple, and you do so over a bowl to catch what comes out. The food mill comes apart easily, and each part can be put in the dishwasher or rinsed off.
None of these tools are one-trick ponies: Each of them can be used for multiple kinds of fruit, and they’re all relatively inexpensive and made of high quality materials, ready to be easily stowed when not in use.
