This week on Scrummy Handshakes we kick of our trip in the wayback machine where we start at the very beginning - Season 1, Episode - Cakes. But before that we catch up with Meredith as she is back from an epic Caribbean journey! She brings us a little history and culture lesson as well as reports back on some of the Scrummy delights she had on the trip. Alison and I just hug out in Dullsville - population 2 - for the break. Not much for baking happened these last couple weeks as times were busy for the team, but Alison has a fun vegan bake planned so more to come! So. O.G. Bake Off. Wow - what a difference. If this first episode is any indication, we are in for some great new experiences. The role of the hosts, Mel and Sue, is much deeper and honestly a lot more “serious”. A lot of the show time is spent learning about history of the week’s subject (cake, this week) and the time spent covering the baking and judging is much more rough and ready. We get introduced to the bakers, but there isn’t deep dives on most as of yet, and for some we didn’t even see what they baked! Paul and Mary Berry are the judges and it’s interesting in seeing how they did it in the beginning. The technical is essentially “top 3 and bottom 3” and you don’t know the order except for the top 3. The bakers themselves - also a little rough and tumble. We discuss this a bit especially once we start getting into how we score the episode. We give some initial assessment on the “characters” themselves, but didn’t get enough exposure to make a full analysis yet. Aretha, Edd, Louise, Jonathan, Jas, Mark, Ruth, Miranda, Lea, and David are our first contestants and while it does not appear that the “mix” formula is the same as it is these days, they do a good job bringing some variety to the show. Bakes were straight forward: a “cake”, Victoria sponge, and a chocolate celebration cake. Results were mixed, but some definitely shined. At the end we three give our assessments based on the criteria of: Were the Challenges Worthy Do the Bakers Deliver Did the Judges Get it Right Did we Learn How were the hosts (bonus criteria) In the end we give our overall assessment of this episode!