Kelly’s Jelly is a family-owned business in Lake Oswego, OR. After years of friends telling us we had to start selling our jams and jellies, we decided to do just that.
Two years later, our jellies are featured every Thursday at Portland’s famous VooDoo Doughnut (Habanero Pepper Jelly Doughnut, anyone?), and, we have the coveted 2012 Scovie award burning a hole in our back pocket.
We are so proud of what we’ve accomplished. Thank you for your support!
Our Story
Kelly and the Girls
It all started with a recipe that was handed down from Kelly’s Great Aunt Danny. Now right off the bat you’re thinking “why is it called Kelly’s and not Aunt Dani’s pepper jelly?” Well, if Kelly did not so conveniently rhyme with Jelly it would be Aunt Danny’s Pepper Jelly, but it does- so we went with Kelly’s.
Back to the story…On an old crumpled piece of stained paper there was a hand written recipe with few ingredients and a short list of instructions.Sugar, vinegar, pectin, bell peppers & of course, Habaneros.
And the directions… chop the peppers add to the sugar and vinegar. Then heat until it boils, add the pectin, stir and put in jars. Sounds easy, eh? For those of you that have not been introduced to the Habanero pepper, it is spicy. And when I say spicy, I mean really SPICY.
Adam and his favorite helper.
They are so hot in fact, that when you cut into them you begin to choke and cough and your eyes sting, which is similar to the reaction caused by pepper spray, go figure. But not only that, when handling these bright orange fruits of fire your fingers begin to burn.
Once on your hands and fingers you can share the burning sensation with your eyes, nose, and even your ears. You can actually taste the heat if you put your fingers in your mouth after exposure. Just one encounter like this with the Habanero and you quickly learn that gloves are a very good idea.
Once past the chopping of the Habaneros, we move the boiling of sugar. Boiling sugar closely resembles liquid magma and if not watched carefully, it can erupt, spreading sticky, gooey and extremely hot molten sugar everywhere. All you can do is get out of the way until the hot mess cools down. Luckily, when we’ve had boil overs we’ve avoided serious burns, but there have been some very close calls.
Over the years our methods have drastically improved, making the process much less hazardous to our health and a lot cleaner for our kitchen.
We began making the Habanero Pepper Jelly to share with our closest friends and family. At dinner parties and family functions this sweet and spicy treat found it’s way into many occasions. The jelly was always a hit and we frequently heard “you know, you guys should sell this stuff”.
Initially, of course, we considered this ridiculous and by all accounts it’s still ridiculous. Regardless, we forged on with the idea, as we’ve always dreamed of starting a family business .
And just like that (7 years later)…we to put a plan together and mapped out how we could make this work.
On goes the story with only the first chapter being written. Who knows how it will end, but we’ve had many fun times and many laughs making this jelly and now we share the sweet and spiciness with everyone.
Please enjoy!
Adam & Kelly Calabria – Kelly’s Jelly Founders
