Chocolate Ground Cherry Upside Down Cake
A super easy to make chocolate cake featuring physalis. This chocolate ground cherry upside down cake is delicious. Serve it warm as a pudding with cream, custard or ice-cream. Or enjoy a slice for afternoon tea when it’s cooled down.
Finally, after weeks of waiting, we had enough ripe ground cherries (a type of physalis) to cook up a bit of a storm. Hum, what to make? Ground cherry crumble was all I’d ever had before and I fancied something a bit different – something with chocolate! And so it was that I came up with this chocolate ground cherry upside down cake.
What on Earth are Ground Cherries?
Ground cherries are absolutely fabulous little golden balls of deliciousness. They’re a type of physalis, of which there are many species. A little like small sweet tomatillos, they are surrounded b a papery husk.
The one we grow is Physalis pruinosa. But don’t confuse them with cape gooseberries, Physalis pervuiana. They are smaller, sweeter and not as bright in appearance. But they make absolutely fabulous puddings. Take a look at my Eve’s pudding if you don’t believe me. They’re also great in a crumble.
One of their most fabulous features is that once picked, they last for quite some time. You can see that the ground cherries in most of the photos in this post look a bit wrinkled. Well that’s because they’re five months old. They’re still sweet and perfectly fine to use, they’re just not quite as beautiful.
I’ve never seen the fruit for sale here in the UK. But if you have a garden or allotment, they’re incredibly easy to grow.
Chocolate Ground Cherry Upside Down Cake
The cake is a super easy one to make. A bit like a brownie, I make it all in one pan. First off melt the butter and pour into the baking tin. Sprinkle with sugar then add the ground cherries. You can then use the same pan to melt the butter, sugar and chocolate together. Then beat in the eggs. Sift in the flour and finally stir in the yoghurt. Spoon it out to cover the ground cherries then bake.
The photos, taken with a flash, have really not done this cake justice. It was really pretty with the golden ground cherries making a great contrast to the lusciously dark cake. We had this warm, fresh from the oven and served with cream for dinner. In fact, now I’ve made it a few times, we always have the first slice warm as a pudding for dinner.
It’s completely delicious and equally delicious the next day cold. My chief taster and ground cherry fan was particularly impressed. The cake vanished with remarkable rapidity. I’ve discovered that ground cherries go particularly well with chocolate and I have made this ground cherry upside down cake again and again. Why don’t more people grow ground cherries I wonder?
Other Upside Down Cakes You Might Like
- Banoffee shortcake
- Chocolate pear cardamom upside-down cake
- Cranberry upside cake with orange
- Gooseberry upside-down cake
- Pineapple upside down cake with chocolate
- Plum upside-down cake
- Upside-down apple cake
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this chocolate ground cherry upside-down cake, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more ground cherry recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Chocolate Ground Cherry Upside Down Cake. PIN IT.
Chocolate Ground Cherry Upside Down Cake
Ingredients
- 200 g ground cherries
- 50 g unsalted butter
- 100 g demerara sugar
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 125 g light muscovado sugar
- 100 g dark chocolate (I use Green & Black’s 85%)
- 2 large eggs (I use duck eggs when I can get them)
- 150 g wholemeal flour (whole wheat) (I use wholemeal spelt flour)
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- pinch sea or rock salt
- 3 tbsp natural yoghurt
Instructions
- Dehusk the ground cherries.
- Melt the butter in a large pan over a low heat.
- Pour into a 22cm round silicone cake mould or lined tin.
- Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top, then add the ground cherries, ensuring they’re in a single layer.
- Use the same pan and melt the butter, chocolate and sugar over a low heat. Remove from the heat, stir and allow to cool slightly.
- Beat in the eggs.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into the pan and stir until just incorporated.
- Stir in the yoghurt.
- Scrape or spoon the cake batter over the ground cherries and level the top.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes in a preheated oven at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4).
- When the cake is well risen and firm to the touch, removed from oven and leave to cool for ten minutes. Turn out onto a plate.
- Serve warm as a pudding with cream, custard or ice-cream. Or leave to cool completely and slice up for afternoon tea.
It looks amazing & I love Cherries & Cape Gooseberries too! Where did you get your plants from initially, as seeds/seedlings?
I’d love to try growing, does the ‘ground’ merely indicate low growing or do they spread & which soils preferred?
I’ve never, knowingly, come across them before
, so thank you for both the delicious recipe & all the grow your own info – really appreciated.
Do you know where they come from originally? I’m currently part of an International online group looking to improve health through nutritious foods that help both us & our so important gut microbiome. Would it be ok if I added your recipe & contact info to my post? I think they will love this, plus the enticement of other recipes on topic!
Would it work with the Cape Gooseberries as well, is that the nearest substitute until ours get planted, grow & fruit? I’ve never seen in shops of garden centres either?
Hi Pat, good to hear you’re interested in ground cherries. They hail from North America and are closely related to cape gooseberries, but less acidic and are annual plants rather than perennials. They’re low growing and ripe fruits detach and fall onto the ground. We can’t remember where we got the seed from, we’ve had the plants for decades now. If you’re in the UK, we can send you some seed, just fill in my contact form and send me your address.
Otherwise, I don’t see why cape gooseberries wouldn’t work, but I haven’t tried them and don’t know if you’d need to add extra sugar to compensate.
I’m happy for you to include a link to my recipe post, but please don’t copy the actual recipe.
Thank you for the info. Copy that to use the link to, not the recipe. I spent a while revisiting the site as I’ve not been on recently & really loved so many of the recipes I didn’t see before. I think you are going to get a lot of visits from my group, as, as I was chatting to them, they were calling out & saying,” ooh I’d like to try that & many other complimentary things, so just gave them your site address & told them to set aside some good time as they’d find it hard to choose. . To get them hungry for more I told them to look on my Pinterest site as I’ve pinned quite a number of your recipes there that I liked – just your ‘pin’ photo & link.
Often when I say to them I’ve a few good UK recipes or sites, I get the comments back that British Food is so boring, because we are stuck with that so old tag of fish & chips, pie & chips….. Those who have been in the group longer, know that’s not true any more, so I didn’t have to say much as they fought for UK’s corner just fine without me & therefore carried a lot more weight! In the words of the ‘A’ Team – I love it when a plan comes together! (but it wouldn’t have happened without amazing sites like yours, so thank you for continuously proving them wrong!
I’ll complete the form with my address, as after hunting far & wide in UK, I couldn’t find any seeds. So thank you very much for the offer.
Best wishes
Pat
Thank you Pat, that’s very kind of you and much appreciated. I’ve replied to your email.
Looks fantastic. It’s on my “must try” list for harvest season this year
Good to hear you grow ground cherries. They’re such an underrated fruit and relatively easy to grow too. Having said that we haven’t managed to grow any for a few years now for one reason or another. Good luck with this year’s harvest.
What a delicious cake and a great way to use ground cherries. I do have some right now at home and would be perfect recipe to use them 🙂
That’s fabulous Molly. It’s good to hear someone else has them too.
Baking with ground cherries is new for me and WOW. Such an incredible and unique recipe. Shucking the ground cherries does take some time, but well worth it for this one!
You’re right, they do take a bit of time to shuck, but other than that the preparation is pretty simple. Would love to know what you use them for?
I cannot believe those ground cherries were 5 months old! That part of your blog blew my mind! haha. Your recipe looks delicious. I would definitely have your cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
Yes, five months is quite astonishing. I don’t think they’d have lasted much longer though. And ice cream is a good call.
Thank you so much Choclette.
I want to say yes, but I have to be realistic about the climate in Scotland. You live in Cornwall, much warmer than where I am. So I don’t know if my attempt of growing ground cherries from seed would thrive here. I have never heard of anyone growing them, or seen them at farmers shops or markets here, so will decline for now. Thank you again for the kind offer.
Hi Mangocheeks – it’s like a smaller version of the cape gooseberry only not quite as sharp – I really like them. If you’d like me to send you one in the post, you can extract the seed and have a go at growing some next year.
Wow – I had never heard of or even seen a ground cherry. Thank you so much for introducing me to this golden sweet looking nugget. Is the taste very different from the red variety?
The cake looks gorgeous too. I am drooling over it, would really love a chocolate kick right now!
Thank you all – compliments always welcome. Haven’t done much cooking with ground cherries before as usually just eat them raw. But will have to try growing a bigger crop next year because I there are loads of things I’d like to try them with now. I expect they would make a good jam too.
Chele, let me know if you ever do find them in a farmer’s market?
Your cake sounds delicious! I also love the colors of your cake. Thanks for sharing 🙂
This looks delicious, and reading your blog, I can’t believe I missed National Chocolate Week!! i will have to have my own one!
Kathy
Yum, what a striking colour combination!
Never seen ground cherries….I’m feeling deprived!
Love the colours. Going to have to keep my eye out for this kind of cherry at the markets me thinks!