This first show uncovers that Queen Victoria is responsible for Britain's wedding cake tradition, that the Puritans tried to ban cake because it was too pleasurable, and that cake baking contributed to women's liberation.

The ten bakers tackle three increasingly difficult challenges as their cake-making ability is tested. They start with their signature bake – the cake they love that says something about them. Next up is the technical challenge – a blind recipe for Victoria sandwich that delivers drastically different results. Finally they tackle the ingredient even professionals fear – chocolate. Whose chocolate celebration cake will win the day? And which two bakers will leave the show at the end?

It is week three of the competition and the six remaining bakers are making bread in Kent. If they found cakes and biscuits challenging, it’s bread that’s considered the real test of a baker’s mettle.

In the shadow of Sarre Windmill, the bakers will be kneading, proving and knocking back their dough under the watchful eye of baking writer Mary Berry and master baker Paul Hollywood. And as they battle it out to produce the perfect loaf, Mel and Sue will be tasting Britain’s earliest bread roll, finding out what happened to bread during the Industrial Revolution and relating the hidden history of the sandwich.

Making bread is an ancient skill. Which of the bakers will best cope with the pressure and who will be the one who has to leave the Bake Off?

It’s week four of and the remaining five bakers have travelled to Bakewell in Derbyshire. This time the bakers are reinventing an often neglected British classic – the pudding.

There will be sticky toffee puds, peach and blueberry "boy-bait", rhubarb and orange betty and a cherry queen of puddings.

But the surprise bake set by judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry really tests the baker’s ability to cope with the pressure. Will the bakers rise to the occasion?

As the puds go in the oven, Mel and Sue roam the country finding out how and why puddings changed from ‘meat’ to ‘sweet’, visiting the birthplace of school puddings and discovering how puddings helped change Britain’s image overseas.