cherry stained hands

I will forever be envious to people who own cherry pitters. I just got through reading a book called Seeing Me Naked by Liza Palmer and she writes about an amazing cherry clafouti; she even provides a recipe at the end of the book. Coincidentally, I was walking through my local grocery store when they had bags and bags of them on sale. Upon, getting home and popping one in my mouth, they were one of the best on sale cherry batches I had ever bought. I was so excited. Cherry clafouti is a French dessert, a cross between a pancake and custard. I hear that, traditionally, you keep the pits in. I found this recipe through foodnetwork.com by the man, Alton Brown.

I found several ways via the world wide web on how to pit a cherry beyond using a paring knife, like the paper clip method. Four cherries later, and many more curse words, contemplating just a leaving the pits in or dumping out the cherry halves that had the pits, I found the best way is to split the cherry in half, grab a pointy end, and pull the pit out. To the right, my pitiful pitting job.

After making the recipe (not in a dutch oven), instead of dumping the cherries in the pan and shaking them in a flat layer (mostly out of impatience and frustration), I would probably face all of them, with the open side down, in a single layer. I would probably also add some almond extract for some depth. Over all though, this would make an awesome brunch or dessert dish. I tried the dish with a serving of whipped cream, then, a dusting of powdered sugar. Go with the powdered sugar. And every cherry season from here on out, I vow to make cherry clafouti.