Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Hotter than Hades Pepper Jelly

I'm ready to cry uncle with the Cayenne peppers.  I've picked and picked and STILL there are blossoms on that plant!

I've dried a ton and turned them into crushed pepper flakes.  But we just don't eat a lot of hot things, so I am at my wits end.  I decided the only way to get rid of a ton of these at once is to make Cayenne Pepper Jelly.

This recipe caught my eye, so I gave it a whirl.  Only I refused to waste the time seeding all the peppers when I wasn't even going to eat any of it, anyway.  So I left them all in and decided to call it "Hotter than Hades".

I weighed out 12 ounces of Cayenne peppers, but basically it was enough to fill the food processor.

Pour in 1 cup of cider vinegar and process.


Transfer to a large saucepan and add another cup of cider vinegar and 6 cups of sugar. 
Bring to a boil and, stirring constantly, boil for 10 minutes.

Add two packets of liquid pectin and return to a rolling boil for one minute.

Transfer to jars and process in a boiling water bath.

This stuff is HOT.  As in, I tried a teeny little bit with no seeds and it had quite the kick.  I decided to let all the seeds float to the top, so that whoever ends up with these can spoon them off if they want.  Another way to reduce the heat is to mix some in with Raspberry or Strawberry jam, and then serve over cream cheese with crackers.  I actually had a commercially-made raspberry hot pepper jelly and it was really good, so don't think I'm crazy!

The batch made 7 pints and one is for Dad for Christmas (he's the only one I know who will eat anything this hot!).  The rest will be used for bartering!

No comments:

Post a Comment