This week on Scrummy Handshakes we visit the breadbasket of the UK - Kent county. Excited to see what’s in store. Out of the Gate our friend Mere is missing… we trudge on… and then she shows up… eventually… it’s funny, trust me. Alison and Sheldon talk about all of the Scones we made. Me - just getting the basics down and trying a half batch with some bacon and cheese. Not bad! Meredith nailed some traditional scones, complete with clotted cream and fruit compote, and Alison pitched a fast ball right in Sheldon’s lane with some amazing looking chocolate chip and espresso glaze ones. The very first Bread week - Paul’s wheelhouse. We got to see the master at work a bit too (though he was kiiiiinda helping someone so that would never happen again hahaha). His skills are amazing. The challenges…eh… they were fine. Keeping in mind that this is the FIRST ever Bread Week, we have to expect that they are drawing from the basics… but honestly, these were really basic. Signature - make some bread… basically any bread. There was a lot of fruit and nuts happening which Sheldon and Alison weren’t crazy about.This round was a rough go for Jonathan and Jas… his was stodgy hers was a focaccia that was more like a pizza crust and had an awful lot going on top of it.Edd’s bread was the clear winner of the bunch and Paul called it Technically Excellent. Learnings galore - some new to us some not. Origins of “daily grind”, Sue makes rustic ground by hand bread on a hot rock, we learn more about the origins of sandwiches and the UK’s “national loaf”, and how the agricultural and industrial revolutions brought the rise of bread in our lives and the advent of the baker. Tons of technical lessons from Paul on this one too - the purpose of “knocking back” the dough, why you score a loaf, the impact of moisture and salt and proofing, and a lot more. The technical - make a Cobb loaf. A very traditional simple (ish) loaf. Most had little trouble, with Edd once again shining, and Jonathan struggling. Edd gets a great compliment from Paul that he could work for him any time. David basically fried his oven for a bit and ruth showed true GBBO kindness and was going to interrupt her bake to help him, but it kicked back on. The showstopper a little confusing. Make 2 sets of 12 rolls, 12 sweet, 12 savory. Up to 3 flavors (each? Unsure) It felt like that was Ignored a bit. Some folks went a bit nuts - David made 6 different doughs all together, Jonathan made 5. Jas put some weird stuff in her sweet breads. Ruth made some very nice pannetone. In the end… Jonathan burned his Chelsea buns and he was just too far back to recover. Jas was lucky… she likely would have been up. If there was a Star Baker, it was Edd. Our assessment of the episode: Challenges: 3 Bakers Deliver: 3 Judges get it right: 5 Learn: 3-5 Hosts: 4 Overall: about 3.5… Not quite “The Flavor is There” more “The flavor is there …but a little stodgy”