Grow your own ground cherries for a rustic Chocolate Almond Torte

Cape gooseberries, ground cherries, husk tomatoes–whatever you call them, were always a childhood favorite. They’re one of those delightful garden secrets, tart-sweet juicy bits of happiness to be discovered inside paper lanterns hanging about on garden bushes which one could eat without the need to wait and wash. Imagine! If the garden was an unending treasure hunt, these were golden clues lighting the way.

Physalis philadelphica, they’re called botanically. Physalis is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, related to the tomatillo–which explains the husk. (More on nightshades forthcoming in my series on common Tamil greens, as another common relative of the ground cherry is the black nightshade, Solanum nigrum or மணத்தக்காளி/manathakkali as it’s known in Tamil).

We discovered green varieties blown in on passing breezes here in our garden, but the glowing golden ones were what we wanted. It took a visit to Johannesburg to find the fresh fruit (though we’d find them later in Chiang Mai markets as well).

Cape gooseberries, as they’re known there, are highly perishable, so our first order of business was consumption. Their slight tartness pairs well with rich, dark chocolate; their juicy bite complements the nutty texture of a torte.

Having had our cake, however, brought us to the edge of existential crisis: what’s a chocolate almond torte without a ground cherry topper? Luckily, the quick disintegration of the husked ground cherry left us with a handful of spoiling fruit–which became then the source of our genetic material. Otherwise put, we saved seeds simply by smearing half the remaining (spoiling) fruit on paper towels and leaving those out to dry, and sticking what remained of the ground cherries in the ..er, ground. I’m not certain how long the dry seeds remain viable, but I’ll not be waiting beyond the coming season to plant them (with the paper, cut into bits to space out) in the ground. 

Ground cherries grow easily, almost without care; they’re the ultimate no-fuss plant, happy just with some reasonably nourished soil, a space to spread, and water.

We had seedlings before long, and then these unassumingly beautiful little flowers:

Soon, our bush was covered with little green lanterns..

And happily spread its way around to dominate one rather large bed in my suddenly rather small-seeming kitchen garden..

But I didn’t mind. In these few months were contained the nostalgia for so much of my childhood, all those hours after-homework and before-dinner spent finding little edible treats, perfectly packaged and good to go, in secret garden corners.

It was hard enough waiting for the lanterns to light up–that is, for the green husks to dry and turn gold, a sign that the fruit inside was ripe and ready.

And then there they were…

Ground cherries keep a lot better and longer in their husks, so don’t do like the South Africans and husk these babies to store. Fruit we bought from Chiang Mai market lasted weeks in the refrigerator; from Johannesburg I was lucky if the husked fruit reached home without putrefying. But all good things have a de-finite life, so it’s best you get on with it — eat them in the garden, or get ready quick! to make this cake.

Really, you’re still waiting??

Oh, right, you need the recipe. So here it is. Happy growing, happy baking, happy garnishing. Life is just happier with ground cherries around.