Fruit – How to get the pits out of clingstone peaches for peach butter

canningfruitpeaches

I'm making peach butter. The recipe I have uses the skin on the peaches (you put the peaches in a blender, put them in the slow cooker with sugar and spices, then use an immersion blender at the end to blend it all again). Unfortunately the peaches I got are clingstone. And they are small (like tangerines maybe), but the flavor is really good. If I just roughly chop the peaches and throw them into the slow cooker (pits and all), will the peaches eventually cook away from the pits, making it easy to remove them? Or will cooking the pits give off a yucky (bitter) flavor and taint the peach butter? Or is there a super simple way of removing the pits in clingstone peaches? Thanks. 🙂

Update 20 May: I forgot to mention that the peaches were about the size of plums. Of course a little more challenging. I ended up cutting chunks off with a paring knife and was able to get pretty close to the pit. Of course it was really messy, especially with the much riper ones! All the peaches have been blended and are in the crock pot slowly turning into peach butter! Next time I ask someone else to get me a ton of peaches, I'll make sure to specify freestone! 😀

Update 21 May: I came home to a disgusting smell and mess in my slow cooker yesterday. I guess the temperature was too hot (it was on low) and it all burned into a horrible mess. I only had three ingredients in the slow cooker. $40 worth of peaches, 2 1/2 cups brown sugar, and 1/4 cup homemade vanilla extract (bourbon and vanilla pods). It was on for five hours overnight and looked great in the morning but it was still very thin (in fact it seemed thinner than the night before), so I left it on low while I went to work. I was gone eight hours and came home to a gross looking and smelling mess. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to attach a picture. 🙁

Best Answer

You may try a mango pit remover. Slide the peach up as far towards the small size as possible. This is just a thought, I have not tried it.