Hi All - it is with mixed emotions that I am announcing that this is the last episode of Scrummy Handshakes - at least for now. Alison can't return and doing this withougt her makes me ... well... sad. Maybe the future will bring a different path, but for now, this is what I need to do.

I hope you enjoy this last episode where we tear through the rest of Juniors!

We see:

Amazing builds of meringue, illusion cakes, mirrors, jellies, and much more.

Floor cookies and the worst floor cake in bakeoff history.

Some touching moments.

Laughing with Harry.

Hurting Harry!

Lola. All the Lola.

Victories for all.

A deserving winner and a satisfying final round.

I will still keep the Instagram alive: @scrummyhandshakes but feel free to follow my personal one as well: IG: @iwassheldonfirst

Keep on Baking!

Still traveling a lot so baking limited - but did make some brown butter CC cookies! And then had some my employee made - hers were better so I got her recipe :-)

Ellie Jean Taylor is having a baby! Bake off starts in UK on Tuesday sept 26... still no confirmation from Netflix on their having episodes 3 days later.

Last round for Heat B before recombining the groups. Pastry - the differentiator in my book. A lot can go wrong and the options are wide.

In the technical they ere asked to make pop ta.... (i mean) STARS. They had to make their own peanut butter to go with jelly inside the pastry. Keys to this were get the thickness right, make the peanut butter smooth, and crimp to hold it all in. Aisya and Fraser did this pretty well. Frasers got a bit overbakes=d though and it pushed him to 2nd in the technical. Salma did a decent job. Both Tomas and Gabriel struggled. Tomos with uneven rolling of his pastry and gabriel with over saltiness and not blending his peanut butter smooth... and not crimping, earning him last.

In the showstopper they had to make a family crest using pastry. some went sweet (Gabriel and Tomos) while the other went savory. Salma went with what was more of a dough than a pastry crust. It was yeasted and had no butter. Hers was "good" but Liam was wanting for short crust so it cost her I believe. Aisya went with a spicy chicken pastry and traditional short crust. Colorful... but a little messy. Tasty though. Fraser - delicious and used star anise brilliantly, but very simple in its design. The two sweet pies both used fruit - a risk for sure because of moisture. Gabriel added a creme patissiere ... which looked very lumpy... but apparently tasted good. He blind baked his crust which was smart. Tomos... did not blind bake and this was a mistake. Soggy bottom. Kiss of death and he was sent home.

Star baker went to Fraser who is a brilliant baker. I was pulling for Aisya, but at least they both head to finals.

So we combine both groups next episode:

Heat A: Lola, Quique, Macy, Kezia

Heat B: Fraser, Aisya, Gabriel, Salma

My bets are on Fraser or Aisya. I'm excited to see them all again though - hope its a good contest.

Sheldon talks about making Christina Tosi's (Milk Bar) Cornflake Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Cookie - - one word "yum" and talks about the next step of making his own recipe.

Where are they now with Nancy Birtwhistle - Season 5 winner.

Rav's dress looked amazing!

No new bake off news yet...was hoping for contestants.

Technical "Rainbow baked Alaska". Banana ice cream... eww. Biggest challenge was getting ice cream to set. Gabriel's forgot butter and flour in the cake... so added it after. Salma and Fraser nailed it. Gabriel and Mia and Aisya did not. Setting issues.

In the showstopper - illusion desserts. Most made a cake, Salma sort of did but used Maltese biscuit. Three people chose pizza to make an illusion on - Mia, Salma, and Tomos. All had different flavors and approach. Salma's stood out. Mia's stood out the other direction... Fraser's meatball sandwiches looked absolutely professional - flavor of mint maybe not a great choice. Aisya's "chicken satay" was amazing. Gabriel's "fish and chips" looked a bit messy to me... Rav seemed to like the flavor, but in my personal opinion, Gabriel did not meet the visual part of the brief. Apparently Mia's jam snafu on the pizza though was worse as she ended up going home. I disagreed in general... but as I've said before - I didn't taste them.

Next week = Pastry for B to decide who goes on to finals week.

Episode 50!!! Very excited to bring the show to you - it’s fun and I love talking about this topic. Tell your baking friends to come along for the ride!  Follow us on IG @scrummyhandshakes

So I made a little investment in my baking journey.  Alison turned me on to Christina Tosi of Milk Bar fame - she also does a show on Netflix called Bake Squad - 10 out of 10 must watch if you love GBBO. I kept seeing a “masterclass” kind of thing for her on a platform called Studio.  She teaches 3 of Milk Bar’s famous recipes - Cornflake Choc Chip Marshmallow cookie, Milk Bar Pie, and Birthday Layer Cake - but she also teaches her process for recipe creation, prototyping, etc. Something like 16 hours of classes.  So  - I decided I wanted to up my learning and I got it!  Started on the cookies and these look exciting. There is a sub recipe for the “cornflake crunch” aspect of the cookie and just that is a fantastic mix in that could be used for a ton of stuff. I bet you could top ice cream with it and it would be amazing. Very excited to see how these things go!

Bake off news:  it’s starting soon!  Expect to see the line up of bakers ANY day now!  ALSO - big format changes! Reading several articles on the subject and and it appears that there will be no “national themed” weeks this year based on feedback from the fans.  This is probably for the best as there have been a few cringe moments sprouting from those weeks.  Best to play it safe. New theme is “Party Cakes”.  It also appears the bakes will be more “approachable”. Paul says “In a way we’ve returned to the philosophy of the first three series”.  I like it already!

In where are they now this week, let’s take a look at series nine and someone that I very much enjoyed on the show Briony Williams. She was one of the only bakers I can recall that had a visible physical “difference” - she has no fingers on her left hand - It in no way should be called a disability at all - she rocked in the kitchen and nothing slowed her down. 

Post bake off she was a presenter for Channel 4’s “Food unwrapped” as well as “Escape to the Country” and writes columns for publications such as BristolLife. Follow her on her Instagram along with her 150k followers @brionymaybakes where she posts a lot about her life and adventures as well as tons of recipes.

Bread week for Heat B! First comment - I just love Rav and Liam as judges. They almost look like a "couple" they are so comfortable with each other. The bakers kick things off with a pull apart bear bread with spicy harissa and parmesan with tapenade side. This is a non-yeasted bread and Aisya knew right away what to do with it. She gave almost a mini-tutorial. Fraser and Mia had strong looking bakes, while Sasha dropped a couple of hers. D'vonte and tomos were "ok" along with Gabriel. Taking technical was Aisya took the top spot followed by Mia and Fraser. D'vonte at the 7th slot with Gabriel last. Over blitzing the tapenade and not baking the bears "together" were the two big challenges.

In showstopper it was your best day in focaccia! They were allowed to make dough the day before (I wish they would show that footage!). These were pretty straight forward with a few nuances - Fraser went sourdough - a bold move that paid off. D'Vonte made 2 types but gave up the send proof - a gamble that did NOT pay off. Aisya's was gorgeous. Mia's had lots of promise but she should have cooked her sausage first. Gabriel did one with veggies and chili salt, but the chili wasn't present - only the salt.... salma did a nice job but had a way to go from being 5th in technical.

Star went to Fraser... not crazy that he won (must have been delicious) but I thought Aisya was stronger as a whole. They sent D'vonte home - that 2nd proof miss... but honestly ... I felt Gabriel deserved to go more. Last in technical and over salted with poor design. Will see when actual new bake off starts but will continue with Juniors until then!

Episode reviewed:  Juniors S7E7 - Heat B Biscuit Week

Start off with bakes - It was Ghirardelli baking week for Sheldon. Brownies, White chocolate macadamia / cashew cookies, and straight up chocolate chip.  Oh and Ovens are the devil.

11:37: where are they now.  S12 finalist - Crystelle Pereira IG: @crystellepereira has been doing great it appears since her finalist appearance on season 12 of GBBO whee she, Giuseppe, and Chigs battled for the win. Her instagram is full of fun and tips - most recently she has been doing unique fruits and veggies. She has a new book - Flavor Kitchen (yes the US version has no “u” hahaha)

15:42 - Covering of the episode.

Biscuit week after no-one was sent home last time. 

Technical: Snack-cessorie - sable biscuit sunglasses with boiled sweet lenses and a “surprise between the lenses.  Some issues with some bakers on their shaping of the biscuits.  Mia dropped most of her tray and was only able to deliver one pair vs the three in the brief. Olivia was put at a bit of an unfair advantage - one task was to bash up the sweets and she was a bit too tiny to do this effectively.  Set her back on the bake but she still managed to be 6th. Nice work by Frazer and Aisya on this one

Showstopper: Cookie box about your life. The big takeaway was “neatness was tops” - a lot of comments made when there were gaps in edges. Mia’s was all beat up and her lemon poppyseed biscuits needed more lemon. Frazer- proving he is 45 and not 15 - used self-harvested hogweed as one of his flavors but it looked amazing as did Aisya’s. Salma had five different flavors which were all pretty good but didn’t necessarily complement each other. Olivia had some uneven bake and maybe too much clove in her gingerbread. Tomos was a bit untidy and used orange extract that tasted artificial.  He and D’vonte didn’t chill their dough which led to some wonky edges.

It ended up that Fraser was Star - well deserved, but then Olivia was sent home.  Now granted, I didn’t taste the bake, but I felt Mia overall had the worse day… and Olivia was almost star on day 1… I felt that “feats of strength” candy smash unfairly set her back, so I disagree with sending her home. But alas - I’m not the judge! 

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Episode reviewed:  Juniors S7E6 - Heat B Cake Week

Start off with bakes - Sheldon takes on Bundt and the return of Choux - hear how it turned out.

12:35: where are they now.  Former host Sandi Tosvig. So many interesting things I learned about her - I spend more time than I normally would on this segment, but she is fascinating and up to some very cool things.

19:30 - Covering of the episode.

8 new kids in the tent from 9 year old Olivia to 15 year old Fraser and Mia. The have a good mix of bakers.

Sheldon has some “opinions” on one… it’s possible he’s never baked before hahaha.

Technical: Upside down pumpkin spice cake with toffee sauce - image of Liam’s face on the bottom. Strong showing by the youngest in the group! A couple of absolute disasters.

Showstopper: Wildest dreams in cake. There are definitely some wild dreams and some great cake.  Super impressed with Salma, Olivia, and Aisha. Fraser gets my honorable mention. At risk next time if they don’t improve: Gabriel, Tomas, Mia. Maybe D’Vonte.

Rumor that GBBO may be starting again mid-September.  If that’s the case, we will accelerate coverage of the Juniors and cover actual GBBO each week it is released on US Netflix.

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It’s Juniors S7E5 - pastry day for Heat A! For bakes this week I took on some oatmeal butterscotch cookies - but with a little twist of my own in how I prepped them.  I had two delicious desserts from local bakers, a cinnamon chop oatmeal cream pie and a chocolate chocolate chip bunny cake with cream cheese icing.

Where are they Now:  This week we take a ride to Season 10. We look at one of the finalists  - Steph (Steph) Blackwell.  Steph struggled in the tent for confidence, but she was an amazing baker that always just brought the goods.  I like to start my research on Social Media and we head to her IG: @stephiblackwell where she has 139k followers.  The last time she posted was in May of 2022 where she was showing us her 2nd book “Bake Yourself Happy” a follow up to her first book The Joy of Baking.  Prior to bakeoff Steph used to be a very strong athlete - all country in hurdles before an injury sidelined her. She was star baker on the show FOUR times. She talks openly about mental health struggles including her own eating disorder that she has under management.  But I’ll be honest aside from that IG post over a year ago the only thing I’ve been able to determine is that she still shares recipes and a column in Chesire Life Magazine. See one published in August 2023. Other than that … that’s it.

Warning. - spoilers below

Two bakes as is typical with Juniors. The Technical brought us the “religious” - which is normally a nun, but Rev threw a curveball and asked them to make a choir pastry Harry with hazelnut pastry cream.  A few didn’t get the pastry right (Lola and Macy) a couple botched the cream.  Quique and Kezia did well with Kecia taking first.  Lola was at the back with Eliza 5th.  Eggs were the key to the choux and over whipping was the cream’s biggest faults.

Showstopper was “Takaway pie” (takeaway is what we call take out in the States.).  First time they had to do Savory.  All the bakers went for short crust.  The key to a great shortcrust is WATER and the amount of working. Some very creative bakes - Lola with a beep dish “alliteration pie”, Macy with Korma. Bothe Quique and Eliza took on “Chinese” - one with pork the other with duck. Kezia did a chicken and lamb doner pie.  Lola did well, Macy had some constructive comments but not bad, Quique was a bit underbaked but good on flavor, Kecia knocked it out of the park, and Eliza ran short on time and was underbakes and her duck was over cooked. 

Eliza impressed me again with her kindness and maturity, but alas it wasn’t enough… she was sent home.She was crying at the end, but ultimately was a good sport and left with dignity. She will be missed. Kecia - always humble - took a very well deserved Star Baker. I am shocked that both of the youngest two made the finals for the heat. (Lola and Quique)

Next week we see Heat B for the first time.

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It’s Juniors S7E4 - dessert day for Heat A! Baking was limited to making some homemade pancakes and discovering the multitude of recipes for self rising flour.It was maddening!

Where are they Now:  Season 11 winner Peter Sawkins. From Edinburgh Scotland, Peter was the youngest winner in Bake Off history. He was known for his big smile and gluten free ability. Has continued to bake a lot post GBBO and can frequently see him posting about it on IG: Peter_bakes He approaches his social media and baking with humility that makes him easy to like. Had a little snafu with social media a while back when people assumed he was coming out based on a video snippet - he handled it beautifully and with kindness in explaining that this was not the case. He has released two books - Peter Bakes and Peter’s Baking Party which is designed to help kids with baking.

Warning. - spoilers below

Two bakes as is typical with Juniors. The Technical brought the art of meringue to the tent, testing the bakes ability to make, pipe, and bake the tricky egg white delight. They had to create Fruity Pineapple (shaped) Bombs with mango and passionfruit cream in the middle

Most did fine with it a few cracks in the meringue, a few missed steps, some “floor meringue”. A couple of issues with the cream for some, but overall the bakers did well.  Mia struggles a bi with time and ended up spreading and not piping the meringue and didn’t make the “leaves”. This left her last in the technical, with Quique fifth, and Macy 4th. Kezia and Eliza did some nice piping work but Eliza’s cream was a bit over whipped leaving her 3rd and Kecia’s color was off giving her 2nd. This left 9 year old Lola at the top of the technical!  She was beaming.

Showstopper brought us cheesecake dream vacations.  Goos efforts by pretty much everyone! Macy made two layer campfire cheesecake. Quique did a Basque cheesecake - he had a little upset that dinged up the side - he recovered nicely. Mia did white chocolate with coconut lime flavored Antartica cheesecake - he flavors weren’t quite there but it looked nice. Eliza did a delightful tiramisu cheesecake with included the use of tuile - very nice. Kezia did a LOT in her Hawaiian dream cheesecake with homemade biscuit base and orange sponge “dirt”. Lola did a mermaid dream with ginger nut biscuits and cream cheese based cheesecake delivering an attractive and tasty result.

Star baker went to Lola! I’ve never seen anyone SO happy to win it.  The last place technical and miss on flavors led to Mia going home. She didn’t take it so well… but alas … she’s a kid. Open sobbing that kind of took away from Lola’s moment in my opinion.

Next week Pastry day for Heat A!

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It’s Juniors S7E3 - Bread day for Heat A! Kick off with some GBBO news - our friend Giesseppe Dell’Anno from Season 12 has a new book - Giessupe’s Easy Bakes available for Pre-order.  This is his 2nd book - the first was from about a year ago. I’m tempted to get it 

Where are they Now:  Hermine Dossou - Season 11. From west Africa and moved to London in 2001 for education. Has been baking her own things since age 8 and kept on rolling. She loves high end French baking, and it showed in her style and flair on the show… but she was just shy of making it to the finals. So what is she doing NOW. 

Well she has a new book available for pre-order - The Thrifty Baker. She posted this on instagram - bakealongwithhermine - back in May.  She hasn’t really been active on the channel despite almost 100k followers.  2021 interviews - Hermine is an accountant prior to bake off, with one child. She was a semi-finalist and was also on the holiday episode of bake off. She did a special food truck tour this year called “Give peas a chance” which supported an effort to help farming families in Malawi become more self-sufficient. The country was recently hit with a massive cyclone that left over 500,000 without homes and destroyed many crops at their peak.

Two bakes as is typical with Juniors. The Technical brought a steamer to the tent for the first time (in Juniors). Panda steamed buns. They gave them an hour to make these mushroom and ginger filled concoctions. It involved black food coloring and the messiness did not disappoint. Some challenges with making neat pockets of dough, proofing and steaming times. Lola had the toughest go of it - she barely rolled out her dough so not much filling which left her at the end. Kezia had great forming technique and flavor earning her the top spot in this round. 

I do have to say Eliza impresses me not only with her cool head, but in her willingness to help others - she does it multiple times each episode. What a great example of a kid!

In the showstopper, they had to make their heroes in a sweet bread. They were allowed to start their dough the day before to proof overnight. Some that had a sweeter dough like brioche… that was a lot of proof time.. Eliza’s looked like a bread blob spilling over the bowl onto the pan. Interesting takes by several - there were two Frida Kahlo takes. Eliza’s had three types of flavors in it, and Mia’s had a honey dough, but both come out really well. Though Eliza’s lack of a second proof left hers a little tight. Lola did Captain Tom in bread, filled generously with Hazelnuts and chocolate spread. Looked great. Quique had the MOST adorable story of how his was his teacher - the way he described her melted my heart. His result was good, but a little under proofed. Will had some challenges - skipped a 2nd proof, and burned a part of the design so had to remake. Macy kept it simple in her brioche and icing sugar Toni Duggan and it paid off. Kezia did a strong bake in her brioche tribute to Jemma Wilson.

Will’s weak showing in the showstopper sent him home despite a reasonably strong 3rd in the technical, and Kecia brings home Star Baker.

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Juniors S7E2 - Heat A Biscuit week!

Been a quiet week for the hosts - no baking, but a shoutout for a local to Richmond biscuit maker: Cafe Warshafsky - https://www.cafewarshafsky.com/

We do a quick where are they now with one of the "controversial" bakers - Ruby Tandoh.

Two bakes this week: Liam's Peanut Butter Millionaire shortbread, and a "biscuit Piniata"

Spoilers below:

In the Shortbreads, the issues came mostly to getting a good bake on the shortbread (several underbaked), or getting the caramel. Lola, Mia, Joey all ruined caramel first try. In Judging several had issues with soft bakes, Will over stoked his peanut butter caramel and it came out hard. Bottom of the heap: Joey and Quique with Eliza Taking top honors.

In the showstopper - bake time reared its ugly head again. Mia, Will, Kezia all had structural issues from underbaking. Joey tried brandy snaps as his structure and it did not pay off. Biggest surprise - Quique bringing home a handshake for his beehive pinata ... and then getting STAR BAKER. I personally felt Eliza should have been the win. And, no surprise based on the day, last episode's star baker Joey... was sent home.

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