This could also be called “how to bake a ground cherry pie”

Last spring when I was just starting out and growing my first vegetable garden from seed,  my neighbour handed me a little sprout from a ground cherry plant.  “Try this” Gary said.   He is always making me try weird new things.  (i.e. persimmons and tomatillos –  to name just two over the last week).

The ground cherry sprout eventually got planted along with the tomatoes.  It thrived in my garden this summer, producing hundreds of small marble sized green berries, covered in papery husks. When the ground cherry ripens it drops from the plant. 

Through out the summer I have picked and sampled them a few times.   I kept hoping their taste would improve.  They taste very strange – kind of a bad cross between a pineapple and something disgusting.  A fig perhaps.

Yesterday, I started to clean out my garden and toss all the old plants into my compose pile.  Left over on the ground were all the ground cherry husks.  Well, I’m all for new experiences and since I did go to the trouble of growing these things,  I decide to gather them up and bake a pie.  This was a one time-only, what-the-hell, kind of experience.   My recipe was found on-line.     http://allrecipes.com/recipe/ground-cherry-pie-ii/

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups ground cherries   (note:  I  used 2 cups ground cherries and 1/2 cup sour cherries)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 (9 inch) pie shell
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. Wash ground cherries and place in unbaked pie shell. Mix brown sugar and 1 tablespoon flour and sprinkle over cherries. Sprinkle water over top. Mix together 3 tablespoons flour and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cut butter in until crumbly. Top cherry mixture with crumbs.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and continue to bake for 25 minutes.

Ground cherries gathered from the dirt

Ground cherries with the papery husks removed

At the last-minute I made a small adjustment with the recipe.  Instead of using a full 2.5 cups of ground cherry, I only  added 2 cups of the ground cherry and replaced the 1/2 cup with sour cherries instead.  I thought it might mask some of the flavour and give the pie a more appealing colour. 

Coming out of the oven

I baked two pies.  One of them was for Gary.  If I died of poisoning, he was going down too.

They smelled great coming out of the oven. They looked beautiful – all golden brown and bubbly.  The taste?   Well……… it was sweet and sour and kind of like a rhubarb., but not quite like that………  the taste was as indescribable as the ground cherry itself.   Just know that it was all really delicious.  This proves that anything will taste good if you add enough sugar to it. 

ummmmmm    I’m going for a second piece.     The End.