Homestead Recipe: Ground Cherry Jam

We started growing ground cherries (also known as husk cherries) a few years ago, and not knowing how productive they would be, I planted 4 plants. These produced a ridiculous amount of fruit, and after eating and giving away as many of them as we could, as well as freezing quite a few, they were still producing and I was at a loss as to what to do with them.

Fortunately, my awesome husband found me the amazing recipe below, and I've made at least one big batch of ground cherry jam every summer since!

This is my go-to recipe and I've never used any others - I love it as it's super simple, tastes amazing, and is also low-sugar. I would describe this jam as tasting like "if caramel was a fruit and you made jam out of it". However, for even more rich caramel-y flavor, try using demerara or turbinado sugar. YUM!

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Ground Cherry Jam Recipe*

Time: 1 hour-ish
Yield: 2 half pints (or 4 quarter pints)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups Ground Cherries, husked, (about 5 pints in husks, or 2 pounds)
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

Instructions:

1. Husk the ground cherries and add them to a saucepan.
2. Add the lemon juice and cook over low heat until the ground cherries have popped and released their juices.  Give it a stir to break them up a bit.
3. Add the sugar and cook over medium heat until the jam thickens, about 15-30 minutes.
4. Pour into clean canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace and store in the refrigerator for eating soon, or process in a water bath canner for 5 minutes for shelf storage. (Process 10 minutes for half-pints, or 15 if you're doing pints.)

A few notes:

• I left the timing a little loosey-goosey, as it will depend on your elevation as well as the juiciness of your fruit, but in general, you'll want to cook your jam for approximately 35-45 minutes total to reach the right thickness. You can use the spoon test or saucer test to check for thickness. I tend to overdo it sometimes, and several times have ended up with something more like ground cherry taffy!  :-)
  
• In the original recipe, she says you can use less sugar, so feel free to cut it down a bit if you like. As long as you're adding the lemon juice, your acidity will be fine for safe storage. I have always used 1 cup of sugar as listed above, as this is still a much lower ratio than any other jam recipe I have seen. (I may experiment with less in my next batch and see how it turns out.)
• Since there's no pectin to mess with, it's perfectly fine to increase the batch size accordingly. I usually make at least a double batch. If I'm going to all the work of canning, might as well make a whole bunch!
  
• The most time-consuming part is husking all the ground cherries. This is a great activity to do while watching TV, so I usually husk a bunch over a couple of days and store in containers in the fridge until I have enough to make a big batch of jam.
  

There you have it - the tastiest and easiest jam ever! I usually make a bunch and give jars away as gifts for the holidays. Such a fun and easy homemade gift - and people love it!

A finished (double) batch, plus canned tomatoes in the background. :-)

Oh, and I also found another thing to do with all the rest of those groundcherries once you've used up all your jars or you're tired of making jam: Husk them and put them in the dehydrator for a day; they make chewy tasty little golden raisin-type things that are excellent in trail mix or baked goods! :-)

Rose.


* Original Recipe Source: PracticalSelfReliance.com