When actress Hillary Danner first began making jellies out of the hot peppers she grew in her Highland Park backyard, she was skeptical.

“To me, it sounded horrible,” Danner said. “I didn’t know about pepper jellies.”

But now, three years and countless tastings and food shows later, she has perfected the recipe and transformed what was once a hobby into Jenkins Jellies, a small business with a following that’s spreading.

The fledgling business has only one product: Hell Fire Pepper Jelly, which despite its name does not include any fruit.

The gluten-free vegan condiment gained popularity after receiving endorsements from celebrity chef Mario Batali and from Danner’s cousin, actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

“One morning I woke up and my (e-mail) inbox was full of notifications of payment from all over the world,” Danner said. That was a little more than a year ago. She thought, “I guess I better get serious!”

She went from making small batches of 30 or 40 jars of the jelly at a time in her kitchen to planning for her first 10,000-jar batch at a co-packing facility, which is to be produced this week at a plant in Garden Grove.

The first jars to hit store shelves did so recently in New York, where eight grocery stores agreed to carry the spread of sweet and spicy peppers. One Dean & Deluca store in Northern California carries her jelly, and she has lined up a national distributor who will focus on the West Coast.

Still, as a business, Jenkins Jellies has yet to break even.

Her recipe calls for seven kinds of peppers, but now she’s trying to go one step further and put some real fruit in her jelly. Some of her exotic flavor ideas so far include cranberry-citrus pepper jelly and pineapple pepper jelly.

“I’m definitely under pressure to not be a one-hit wonder,” said Danner.