I was disappointed with the way my Jalapeño jelly turned out last week. So today I decided to make a new kind of jelly: Ají Limón Jelly.

I picked a few of the Ají Limón peppers from the garden. They smell like a combination of Habaneros and lemons, which is probably where they get their name. We picked up a few more ingredients and made some jelly. I used a modified version of last year’s Habanero jelly recipe. I used yellow bell peppers instead of red and I added some lemon juice. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

Ingredients:
3 Large Yellow Bell Peppers
10 Ají Limón Peppers
½ Cup Lemon Juice
1 ½ Cups White Distilled Vinegar (5% Acidity)
7 Cups Sugar
9 Oz Certo (or your favorite liquid fruit pectin)

Directions:
1- Put on gloves for safety. Really. You should never cut hot peppers such as Habaneros or Ají Limóns without gloves. If you do, you’ll end up regretting it. When you have your gloves on, slice all peppers into chunks small enough to fit in your blender, removing all seeds and ribs as you go. Ají Limón peppers are perfect for this, as they have very few seeds to begin with.

2- Put peppers, lemon juice, and vinegar into your blender and blend till smooth. I just pushed the ‘Smoothie’ button on my blender and 30 seconds later it was perfect. Pour pepper mixture into a large sauce pan on low heat.

3- Slowly add all 7 cups of sugar to the mixture, stirring constantly, until all the sugar is completely dissolved into the mixture. Bring the sugary mixture to a boil, then drop it back to low heat. Let it simmer for 20 minutes.

4- Strain the mixture as desired. If you want “jelly” then you should pour the mixture through at least one layer of cheesecloth. I prefer my jelly more like a jam, so I just removed any obvious pepper chunks with a spoon and called it good. I didn’t strain it any more than that.

5- Add all 9 ounces of your liquid fruit pectin to the strained mixture on low heat. Stir about one minute, or until the pectin has dissolved.

6- Bring the mixture to a hard rolling boil for one full minute, stirring constantly.

7- Remove from heat. You’re done.

At this point we used a ladle to scoop it into sanitized jars, then processed them in a water bath for 10 minutes. We used 4 oz and 8 oz jars. If you use larger jars, you may need a longer processing time. In our kitchen, we filled 12 of the 4 oz jars and 3 of the 8 oz jars using this recipe. Your mileage may vary.

A word of caution about cleaning up after slicing hot peppers. When you put your knife, cutting board, blender, etc. into hot water, the steam will have a lot of “kick”. Be careful not to breathe too much of it in.