She don't use jelly

Well, yesterday I posted about all the habaneros I picked at the end of the season and my pondering what to do with them. I've added some more pickling in brine and am also dehydrating six full trays, and then decided to take some and do what my friends Jason and Taya suggested and make some pepper jelly out of them.

I checked through most of the recipes on the web and they all seemed to use vinegar. I didn't want to do that, I wanted something a bit different, so after some research I decided to use orange juice with some added lemon juice to raise the acidity and make it amenable to water bath canning. The idea was to use a fruit base to bring out and enhance the habaneros natural "fruitiness." I decided not to make it overwhelmingly hot because I wanted to share it with civilians (Christmas gifts?)

Anyway, here's my recipe:

Ingredients

• 20 1-cup jelly jars with lids (flats) and rings
• 40 large ripe habaneros
• 16 cups sugar (see Notes section, below)
• 8 cups orange juice (with pulp - I used Tropicana because I'm lazy)
• 1 cup lemon juice (I cheated and used RealLemon)
• 3 packets liquid pectin (Certo)

Directions

Wash and stem the habs (30 here - later I decided to go to 40, or two per jar)

Sterilize the jars and lids and utensils

Nice and sterile

Add the sugar to a non-reactive pot

Puree the habs and orange juice in batches (10 habs and 2 cups OJ at a time)

Mmmm...Orange juice with a bit of a kick to it

Measure one cup of lemon juice

Combine habs, OJ and lemon juice in pot and bring to boil, stirring often

Get out your pectin packets and add to boiling mixture in pot and boil hard for 1-2 more minutes

Fill jars, put on lids and rings and process jars in boiling water bath for ten minutes then let cool

Notes

From what I have tasted it came out well - nice and fruity without being overwhelmingly hot (to me - I am sure some will find it fiery). Although it did seem much hotter when a drop splashed into my eye while decanting from the pot, so be careful out there! Also, I had the attic fan on during the cooking phase to make sure the kitchen didn't fill with deadly vapors (although actually, it wasn't that bad - rinsing out the pot with hot water was worse).

I think I may have skimped on the sugar - most pepper jelly recipes with vinegar use at least a 3-to-1 sugar-to-vinegar recipe, whereas I went for 2-to-1 because the orange juice has some sugar in it naturally (but from my calculations, not nearly enough to make much of it back). It's just that 16 cups seemed like a lot, and 24 cups would've seemed even more so. It certainly tastes sweet enough. I am hoping as it cools it will set up well - I probably should have used "low-sugar" pectin, but that's why I used three packets instead of two of the regular. Right now it has more of a "honey" consistency, but the jars are still very warm. We shall see.

Feel free to up or lower the habanero count to your tastes. For a hot head two per jar doesn't seem like much from my limited tasting, but I can also tell it is a heat that will grow on ya as you eat it with cheese and crackers or whatever. I'm already wondering what it'll taste like in a quesadilla. Mmmm...

Update (11/11/10)

The jelly set fine, so the amount of pectin was correct, and it tastes really good, but it is not very hot. So for real hot heads you're going to want to increase the number of habs to at least four per jar.