The team is back and the feelings are mixed on this episode!  We start off with Alison giving us a rundown of her vegan red velvet cake  - and reports are it was better than a normal one!! She tells us why and what helped. Mere and She had no bakes this week, but Mere talks about the scrummy chocolate bundt cake with cherries her mom made. We also learn here mom has no idea that we do a podcast called Scrummy Handshakes hahahaha! Ok - it was biscuit week in Scotland. Biscuit with an asterisk because it appeared that anything that even resembled a biscuit, cookie, macaron, scone, etc was fair game... this is weird for us as we are used to hearing the judges be VERY specific in what they want and mean by a biscuit and this is NOT what they allow typically.  What we did love about this episode - at least Sheldon did especially - was ALL the learning. The history of a biscuit, why is it called "short bread" how did the faithful "digestive" get its name? Mel and Sue travel the countryside and give us the answers. What is the world's most expensive biscuit.... spoiler... you wouldn't want to eat it. Lots of lessons on methods as well including: - the impact us using more sugar - golden honey and the texture it creates - under vs over mixing a batter - a meringue  - how to get choux right - and more!!! The signature was "a biscuit that has your personality".  The team decided that if these are their personalities... they must be kinda boring. A souped up oatmeal raisin, a failed "glass window shortbread", some nice FRESH vanilla biscuits with royal icing (Mary loved these), millionaire shortbread that was worth more like a dollar, a salted caramel and peanut cookie that the judges felt was too salty... but we wondered if we would like...  The bakers seemed to do OK here, but nothing mind blowing. The technical was Paul Hollywood's Scone recipe. There looked more what us Americans would call biscuits... and are they even a British biscuit? We would expect it in bread or maybe pasty week? Ingredients given but no instructions. Keys would be to not overwork the product or it would be like rubber, don't use too much flour, and egg wash ONLY on the top. Results were ...ok... David, Edd, and Annetha had real issues. Jonathan shined. The team decided that for next week we would all try to make the scones ourselves... maybe with some twists? Showstopper felt...odd... petit fours. That's normally patisserie week these days, and what they had to make... meringues, choux buns, and macarons. First thing - they kept calling them macaroons... maybe it's a British thing? They don't seem to do that these days, but perhaps that was before they became "popular". Anyways... the bakers were a bit meh this time it seemed. Jonathan had a whiskey cream for his meringues that was too boozy (where is Prue when you need her), David was rushed (again), Edd's were appealing, Louis unfortunately was "squidgy" (never want to heat that), Annetha was mixed but weak, and Miranda did some nice macarons using pistacio instead of almond - they got high praise. In the end, it was Louise and Annetha catching the axe, we kinda thought David deserved it more though so we felt the judges got it wrong. Overall the challenges were not really worthy, the bakers were mediocre, the judges didn't get it right, the hosts were decent, but we learned a TON.   Overall score: 3 - slightly stodgy