"Melba's Jammin'" > wrote in message
...

<snippage>

>
> I picked up my opened and judged State Fair canning entries on Sunday.
> An unopened jar of each entry was left for display. I will find out
> results on Thursday when the Fair opens; the info is a closely held
> secret until then. I had great hope for my Cherry-Berry Jam in the
> Misc lot, but it appears that they didn't take even a taste of it,
> although the jar was opened < that lot had 52 freakin' entries and they
> judge only 25 lest they're there for days doing it. The other lots that
> consistently draw more than 25 entrie are Strawberry Jam, Raspberry Jam,
> and the Misc lots. There were 21 Beet Pickle entries. Ptooey! THAT's
> the one I'm interested in. My Plum Jelly has a huge gouge from it,
> which suggests good placement in the rankings. My Pomegranate Jelly
> also had a fair amount removed for tasting. There were 15 Bean Pickle
> entries. That surprised me < I'd have expected fewer than that for some
> reason unknown to me. :-)

Wow! Minnesota gets a lot more entries than Illinois. (I just went to the
MN website, and you have better entertainment, too.) That could be because
your fair is close to the big cities.

I've been meaning to try making Pomegranate Jelly. Did you use fresh
pomegranates, or commercial juice? If commercial juice, what brand? I've
never bought the commercial juice, but a friend was complaining about how
bad the brand she bought was, so I thought I'd better find a good one to
make jelly from.

>
> Because I'm losing my mind, I don't remember if I told here that I baked
> my Chocolate Bundt Cake for the Fair TWICE. That would be because I
> forgot to put the FLOUR into the first one. When it was boiling and
> burning in the pan in the oven, I was puzzled. I actually thought I
> might salvage it for *something* < until I opened the oven door and the
> smoke came pouring out. The smell was awful! JAYzuzz! Lots of sugar
> in it and lots of cocoa. P-U!
>
> The second cake is great. :-) It might have too much white drizz on
> it, though. I just posted a pic to my eboard site below.

I think it looks terrific. Here's hoping it gets blue!

Anny