The full band is back together!  Alison is on the mend, Mere is rockin and rolling, and yup... you still have Sheldon around. And we have started with the "new" series on Netflix in the US - Bake Off - The Professionals.  This is actually season 6 of the series, and this was filmed in 2021... but it's new for us.   We kick off with some catching up with the team. Sheldon took on a classic feared dessert - the Souffle!  He made a chocolate variety and it came out prettttty good! We start with our assessments overall on the show as this is a whole new situation with new judges for us altogether and hosts we've only see in other contexts. Sheldon has a little different first assessment that is largely focused on familiarity and the "learning" aspect of the show. Cherish and Benoit are the hosts... and they are definitely a different flavor than Paul and Prue. Alison and Mere surmise it may be that the different "level" of judging is driving some of this?   We had six pars of contestants. Each with their own interesting pedigrees. Jamie and Andrea - The "young guns"; Andrew and Michael - Michael is a returning baker; Julien and Elise - they like to go a bit "extra"; Sherrezade and Merryn - unique flavors; Kevin and Maria Vittoria - England meets Italy; and Stacy and Alex - The culinary instructors.  Each one brought an interesting take.  Some were great... some were not. The first challenge combines a "sugnature and technical like dish:  "Make a unique take on a Jaffa Cake", and "make a traditional classic Italian le tarte pietmontaise (hazelnut tart). Two teams nailed the Jaffa Cake but only did "ok" with the tarte... one went "off brief" sand it cost them.  A couple of teams just struggled overall, but two had a REAL rough go of it... just making some rookie mistakes. Going into the Showpiece they were asked to take something "simple" - strawberries and cream - but make it "wow". A number of them did some really amazing elements... some had disasters.  It almost felt like nobody truly "nailed it" though. It was almost the instructions were TOO simple...like a bit more direction would have delivered a better result.