During the 2010 holiday season my neighbor dropped off a few half-pints of her jalapeno jelly. It was delicious! I love pairing the jelly with cream cheese on a croissant. Yum!
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| homemade pepper jelly |
After a great experience eating and savoring each bite of my neighbor's jalapeno jelly I decided to make my very first batch of homemade jelly. I made my first batch of pepper jelly, name of recipe in the Betty Crocker Cookbook, using four pepperoncini in place of four jalapenos. I used 5 ingredients to make the jelly: pepper, sugar, juice, vinegar, and pectin.
Keep in mind that pepper jelly has a kick/ spicy flavor. I chose to use pepperoncini peppers instead of jalapenos because I did not plant any jalapenos and the pepperoncini plant produced spicy peppers. Usually pepperoncini peppers are sweet but I planted them too close to my Thai dragon pepper plants this year. This caused cross pollination to occur between the Thai dragon and pepperoncini plants, which led to my sweet peppers tasting spicy.
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| Boiling the juice, peppers and vinegar |
I admit, I was a little intimidated by the thought of making homemade jam. However, I found the entire process very simple and easy to complete. To my surprise the preparation process took longer than cooking and canning the jelly. I would have cooked a larger batch if I had known how easy it was to make the pepper jelly.
I have tasted the jelly and it is really good. I cannot wait to pop open a jar and eat some spicy jelly with my toast on a cold winter's morning. I still have lots of peppers left and will try a few variations before the first frost. Wish me luck and I hope I don't burn too many taste buds with my pepper jelly this holiday season.
