Hot Pepper Jelly Recipe for Tigress' Can Jam #tigresscanjam

Hot peppers were the theme for this month's edition of Tigress' Can Jam, so – as a recent convert to pepper jelly – I decided to see what kind of local peppers were conveniently available and put something together accordingly.

Unless I had wanted to opt for something imported from Central America, my sole option turned out to be hot banana peppers, which was just fine with me. Hot banana peppers rank at 5 (5,000 to 15,000 units) on the Scoville Heat Chart, which makes them hotter than jalapeño, poblano or chipotle peppers, but nowhere near a fiery Thai chile, let alone a death-dealing habañero or Scotch bonnet.

I didn't wear surgical gloves, which I literally would do when working with habañeros. Simply washing my hands, cutting board and knife after chopping seemed to tame the ambient capsicum – although I was silly enough to brush my cheek with one hand while working, and felt a slight burn under one eye.

While I was cooking it, I was worried that this jelly might turn out to be a little bit syrupy. It took a long time to reach the setting point, but it gelled up nicely in the jar, thanks, no doubt, to the fresh, tart McIntoshes that went into it. So here's my recipe for what I'm calling:

Golden Banana-Apple Sunrise Jelly

This jelly has a gorgeous warm golden hue, to go along with its slow gentle warming bite.

Day One

1. Quarter 2 lbs of apples (6 medium-large McIntoshes, in my case), and cover them in a pot with 4 cups of water. Use seeds, skins, cores and all. Bring to a boil, then cover, turn down heat and simmer until the fruit has broken down (about 30 minutes). You can help it along with a potato masher.
2. Strain out the largest pieces of skin and core, then use a sieve to extract the juice. Allow the juice to pour through a jelly bag. Do not squeeze it.
3. Pour the juice into a tall jar (a quart/litre pickle jar is fine) and refrigerate overnight.

Day Two

Ingredients

• 3 large hot banana peppers
• 1 sweet pepper (I used one-third each of red, orange and yellow peppers, for colour)
• 1 small onion
• 3 cups of apple pectin liquid (Pour carefully or use a turkey baster to extract the clear liquid without the sediment.)
• 1 cup of cider vinegar (at least 5% acid)
• 4 cups of sugar

Preparation

1. Sterilize jars and warm lids.
2. Very finely chop all the vegetables.
3. Combine all ingredients in a large non-reactive pot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar completely.
4. Boil rapidly until setting point is reached (about 30 minutes.)
5. Ladle into sterilized jars, and process for 10 minutes according to these instructions.