When I was complaining about the time it took to stone my daughter's cherries, my sister recommended this cherry stoner. My daughter likes to have cherries whole, but I worry she'll forget to spit out the stone and choke. We also have a lot of cherry trees locally, so I cook a lot of cherries, and don't want to be pulling stones out of my pie or my jam. So, I gave it a whirl.

The cherry stoner is a stainless steel, it looks and acts a bit like a stapler, but instead of staples there is a pointy pole, which as you squeeze the handles goes right through the fruit, depositing the stone below. I find I catch the stone in my other hand, and there is very little mess, but somehow when my son uses it it causes a lot of mess!

I was sceptical, but I do find that my cherry is basically whole after use... if any of us liked olives, I could easily use this to stone the olive ready for stuffing. All that happens is that the stone is removed.

We don't use olives, but I do like fresh dates, and I find the same happens with dates. Dates are bigger than either cherries or olives, and have a bigger stone, so the fruit sometimes does get crushed, but the stone is removed just as effectively. I imagine it would work perfectly fine on damsons or sloes as well, perfect for the autumn sloe gin!

As for cleaning, well, after first use I was somewhat worried about this, but I didn't need to be. It cleans like a dream, either by hand or in the dishwasher, and more than a year of heavy use after I first got it, there are no stains.

There's even a little plastic band which goes around the handles, keeping it tidy and safe in storage!