Great British Baking Show Cherry Pitter

There have only been a couple episodes where people use cherry pitters to pit fresh cherries. More often than not the bakers tend to use frozen or cherries stored in a syrup for their Black Forrest Cakes and sweet bakes. However, when the bakers on The Great British Baking Show do pit cherries they use two different tools.

The first time I noticed cherries being pitted it was when Cathryn (Great British Bake Off Season 3 - Great British Baking Show Beginnings Season 1) pitted like 2 pounds of cherries. To do so she used a Chef'n QuickPit Cherry Pitter (Amazon Link). This is a handheld pitter for cherries and olives that you use your whole hand to operate. It looks fairly robust and the reviews of it are quite good as well.

The second and third times I noted the pitter it was 100% different. The bakers were using Farm To Table Cherry Pitters (Amazon Link). This is again a hand held pitter but you use your thumb to depress the plunger and a couple fingers to hold it.

Honestly, I think the Great British Baking Show went with what was available here. There are quite a few companies that make pitters but none of the products are crazy stand out and none are British.

Chef'n which makes the Chef'n QuickPit Cherry Pitter (Amazon Link) is a Seattle, Washington (USA) based company. They make all sorts of kitchen wares. While most of their products look to be plastic (and thus what is the longevity?) they seem to be well liked and of a moderate quality (IMO). They're at retailers such as Kohl's and Crate and Barrel.

Farm to Table seems to be a completely different beast. It looks like they are a related to Fox Run Brands. Which, seems to just be a whole seller of various producers wares. I can't find any information on them and even google searching their icon only brings up Fox Run Brands.

Between the two different brands it seems like The Great British Baking Show has both a durable and a cool looking option available.

I currently don't have a cherry pitter! Egads! So, the real question is when I outfit my kitchen which way am I going go go?

Given the option between the Chef'n QuickPit Cherry Pitter (Amazon Link) and the Farm To Table pitter. I'd honestly go with the the Chef'n QuickPit. Why? It looks to be quite a bit more solid and easier to use than the Farm To Table pitter. While they're both dishwasher safe - the farm to table looks like too many parts that can be prone to failure. Getting things stuck in that spring just seems like what is going to happen. Additionally the Farm To Table Brand is hard to find any information on, which seems suspect to me.

That said - There are a couple other options that I'm considering along side the Chef'n QuickPit Cherry Pitter (Amazon Link). The OXO Cherry Pitter (Amazon Link) has a TON of reviews on Amazon and most are great. There are a couple things to consider here, if you're pitting a LOT of cherries, it looks like the OXO needs to be operated with 2 hands (until the arm has a grip on the cherry), additionally the 'splash guard' does not look to farewell in the dishwasher (the pitter does just fine it seems).

Lastly the Kebley Cherry Pitter, which has quite a few great reviews, is 1 hand operable, and dishwasher safe could have some issues with removing the cherry after pitting it. If there is too much fuss getting the cherries out it could be a pain to pit all the cherries your little heart desires.

So all things considered the OXO Cherry Pitter (Amazon Link) clocks in around $12, is dishwasher safe, and fairly robust! I'm going to give it a try and if things fall apart I'll be sure to let you know and torch this review!