Roasted Cherries

Doneness

Cherry halves have collapsed slightly and released a deep red syrupy juice; cut surfaces show charred caramelised edges and the flesh has gone from firm to jammy-soft under a fork. The syrup should pool around the cherries in the basket — that's the roasted-cherry sauce you want to spoon over ice cream. Any cherry still holding its full firm shape needs another minute; any cherry uniformly dark-brown all over has been pulled a minute too late.

Oil & seasoning

No oil — cherries release plenty of their own juice and any added oil pools in the syrup instead of caramelising the cut face. Toss the halved cherries with 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon lemon juice and a few drops of vanilla before loading; the sugar pulls out the juice and creates the syrup, the lemon balances the sweetness, and the vanilla deepens the flavour.

Season with: granulated or light brown sugar (1 tbsp per lb, before cooking), fresh lemon juice (1 tsp per lb, before cooking), vanilla extract (few drops before cooking), almond extract (a couple drops — pairs naturally with stone fruit), ground cinnamon, flaky sea salt to finish, chopped fresh mint or basil after cooking.

Watch out for

• !Pit every cherry. A whole pit in an air-fried cherry is an unpleasant tooth-cracking surprise — use a dedicated cherry pitter (cheap, kitchen-store, takes 3 minutes for a pound) or the paperclip method (push a sturdy paperclip through the stem hole, hook the pit, pull it out). Halving after pitting also accelerates the cook.
• !Single layer non-negotiable. Stacked cherries pool their juices on the bottom layer and the top layer dries out instead of caramelising — split a 1 lb batch into 2 cooks if needed; each cook is only 7 minutes so the total stays under 20.
• !Don't pull early thinking the syrup is too thin — it thickens noticeably as it cools. Cherries pulled at 7 minutes with seemingly-loose syrup will set into a perfect spoonable consistency on the plate in the next 2-3 minutes. Pull at the visual cue (halves collapsed, edges charred, syrup pooled in basket) not at a syrup-thickness target.
• !Line the basket with a piece of parchment cut to size, with the corners snipped for airflow. The rendered syrup is sticky enough to bake into the basket grate if cooked directly on the perforations — parchment lifts cleanly with the cherries and saves a 10-minute scrub. Skip the parchment only if your air fryer basket is non-stick coated and you're ready to scrub immediately after.