Last week was all country-bumpkin and hearty, full of grains and fruit, and although we’re still dealing with some of summer’s best fruit, things are much more glamorous and sophisticated today. I’ve been wanting to do jello shots with cherries for awhile now, and figured I’d better hurry before the summer was over! I guess this week is the last official week of summer before Labor Day, but thankfully the warm weather and fresh cherries should still be around for a bit longer. But to covet them while they’re still affordable, I’ve glammed up some of summer’s last cherries with touches of gold, Diet Coke, and some vodka of course too. Cheers to Labor Day Weekend!

Although I’m firmly against the purchase of kitchen tools that serve only one purpose, owning a cherry pitter would have made my life much, much easier when making these cherry jello shots. I didn’t want to leave pits in the cherries since the shots are intended to be a one bite deal, so I had to use my little paring knife and some patience to cut out the pits without destroying the delicate cherries. It was a somewhat arduous task, but so worth it. Especially because the intact cherries are the best part since each one provides its own handle. No awkwardly scooping out jello from a plastic cup or licking out the remnants – just grab and bite!  I chose to do one layer of Coke-flavored jello and one layer of dark cherry jello to add some artistic flair. Of course you could just mix the 2 flavors together, but that’s just not as fun. Granted the Coke-flavored layer isn’t the prettiest of colors, but it gets the point across visually as to the flavor variety. And I just love the look of the sunken cherries and their stems – so elegant and fun!

To make these circle-shaped without a mold (avoiding another single-use kitchen item thankyouverymuch), I just assembled the jello in a baking sheet and then used a small round cookie cutter to cut circles around each of the cherries. The bottom of the cherries are cut slightly to make them flat so they’ll sit nicely as your pour the next layer on top. This requires some balance, and some organizing in your fridge beforehand so that you have a completely flat area to chill these on! Is that a major issue for anyone else?? I’m constantly running out of space in our tiny city-sized fridge and sometimes I take over the whole thing with just one baking project. Who needs room for milk and eggs anyway when you have cherry jello shots to live off of? But seriously, if you have some fridge space to spare this weekend try out these jello shots if you really want to impress your Labor Day party friends. They’re summery, they’re fruity, and there’s vodka involved – come on now, time to finally get that cherry pitter!