How To Make Queen Victoria's Champagne Jello | Royal Upstairs Downstairs | Real Royalty

[Music] just what do you have to do when a queen decides she's going to pop in to see you and not just any old queen victoria like a pair of obsessed victoria groupies we're pursuing her around the country to the posh pads she visited we'll be delving into her personal diaries to reveal what happened behind closed doors today brighton pavilion it certainly is the most remarkable looking building like nothing else we've ever seen before on our journey and as someone who's spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques i'll be upstairs exploring just what would have excited victoria on her visit here wow splendid and as a chef who's passionate about all sorts of food i'll be going downstairs to the kitchen where i'll be rediscovering a super 19th century recipe that was served to victoria just have a little play with it go on that is ridiculous and see what tim makes of my wobbly creations [Music] the nineteen-year-old queen victoria traveled from windsor castle to the royal pavilion on the 18th of december 1838 the year of her coronation she was here for the festive holidays and stayed until the new year in her diary she tells us her 76 mile journey took six hours and they changed horses five times the same journey today would take about an hour and a half so here we are rosemary the royal pavilion it was actually created by victoria's uncle king george iv and it's completed some 18 years before her first visit and he had some very queer ideas about architecture oh yes george victoria's spendthrift uncle had the royal architect john nash create this indo-chinese wedding cake of a building in the heart of town well you know it was christmas when victoria visited brighton in 1838. you're right because she'd been the year before but she'd never been here in the holiday period and you know i think that's really strange rosemary because she's only been to the royal family seaside holiday residence the once and i reckon it's to do with her uncle george iv he was a profligate and wasteful man and i think was desperately unpopular and she didn't want to be tarnished by that brush but now with george long gone and with the crown family on her head perhaps it was time for a bit of a reappraisal the unmarried teen queen decamped to brighton with a small entourage of ladies in waiting and equeries her arrival created a right royal fuss and flimflam all the times people got into their sunday best so that they could pay homage to their queen well i tell you the servant's quarters must have been buzzing they would have been a hive of activity but that's exactly where i'm off to now so i will see you later very good luck great friend for the 19 year old victoria taking on the duties of a monarch at such a young age must have been overwhelming to say the least she distanced herself from her overbearing mother and had flown the nest but she wasn't sampling the delights of student life she was the queen and just like princess diana in the 1980s she suddenly found herself thrust into the limelight with millions of adoring fans okay here we go some take to the life of super stardom with ease but for victoria it was less welcome and despite being surrounded by people she was in fact quite alone her diary entries paint a picture of a very young woman with no one to confide in we believe her mother might have come with her to the pavilion but she was the last person victoria wanted to talk to the new queen had formed one close attachment to the prime minister lord melbourne who was three times her age she describes having to leave her dear friend behind at windsor as very sad and implored him to visit but at least the wacky pavilion building with its minarets and domes lifted victoria's mood victoria wrote in her journal the pavilion lighted up look cheerful which is always nice particularly at christmas time [Music] on arrival victoria would have been ushered into this space the long gallery when she saw it first she wrote this is a very strange odd chinese looking place and she's absolutely right decorated in the shinwasuri's style from sources that were various she would be certain to have admired these exotic wall coverings not wallpaper but hand-painted wall surfaces from the london firm of decorators grace and go most particularly frederick grace he actually had been no further east than dover all the cunning fellow did was to copy designs from those classic blue and white vases i wonder if her majesty noticed for saturn she would have been amused by these fellows it's an attendant with a counterweight within this articulated neck that enables his head to nod but it doesn't come from the orient it comes from the other very well-known china region stoke on trent [Music] now just because this is a holiday home doesn't mean the servants had an easy time they mothballed the pavilion between each royal visit so preparing for victoria was no small task the pavilion staff increased from around 25 to over 200 during the run-up to her visit i can imagine maids and foot men hurrying along these long corridors which kept the servants out of sight heaven helped a housemate who went through the wrong door or burst into the wrong room our food historian ivan day has already found his way to these extraordinary kitchens and he couldn't be happier to my mind this is the most wonderful kitchen in europe full stop it was designed by nash and he was an architect who really knew what a kitchen had to do first of all you need lots of light so he's got this wonderful lantern which just floods the whole room with superb clear light so you can see what you're doing every part of the kitchen is dedicated to a particular task so over there you see the roasting range behind us we've got the stewing stoves where the finer cookery was done the sauces the stockpots and the consummate pots for making soups and on the dressers you've got this extraordinary battery de cuisine of the most wonderful stew pans and saucepans and fish kettles a lot of this equipment i think would probably survive a direct nuclear attack it's so heavily engineered typically 19th century and then over there is my favorite part of the kitchen you've got these wonderful culinary molds some for making cakes but some are making that iconic food of the 19th century which is jelly and that's what we're going to make today a wonderful champagne jelly that would have grazed every posh table in queen victoria's time and will also be taking a look at the commemorative side of these comical puddings [Music] during the queen's three-week visit extra dosh was forked out to boost staff numbers downstairs but before she arrived even more cash had been splashed out preparing the pavilion for victoria with all this bling it's more like a rapper's delight than a royal palace four thousand pounds was blown on tarting the place up that's over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in today's money quite as some for just a bit of a spruce up of what was after all a holiday home even one as architecturally sophisticated as this [Music] the extreme length of the long gallery some 160 feet coupled with the relatively low ceilings serve as an architectural conceit you don't realize it but you're being drawn into this funnel a modest doorway at the end of the gallery that prepares your eye for the next treat wow [Music] bizarre or what the dominant feature for me has to be the dome that's been painted with plantain or banana leaves as if nodding towards the empire in the east underneath the leaves we've got a ventilation system acting like a chimney that takes away the heat and the smells torah didn't think much of it because she complained the pavilion was either always too hot or too cold i wonder if this crazy dragon's den of a dining room affected her appetite at all and not in a good way you have to hope i'm wrong after all she must have eaten around 20 huge meals here in the run-up to christmas and as for christmas dinner itself the young queen victoria would not have been sitting down to turkey in brussels sprouts oh no she would have been served up to seven courses of over 30 dishes and never mind the wines and the cuisine wasn't english but french as was the fashion at the grandest of tables as victoria sat here wading her way through many exotic and over-decorated courses that went to make up her christmas meals you can almost imagine her looking down her refined little nose rather contemptuously at this opulent scene it's quite a contrast to the simple functional kitchen where all the elaborate food would have been prepared including the dish we're making today a champagne jelly jellies had taken a feverish hold in the 19th century often being used as the crowning glory for the victorian table the reason for this growth in popularity was partially due to the advances in molds and our jelly uses a particularly clever mold this is known as a belgrave mold i've got two here an oval one yes and a round one which is on the ice now what makes them special is that they have these extraordinary liners with these spiral tubes these molds first came into use in the 19th century and the idea is this we put them into the mold yes and we fill it up with jelly and we let the jelly set and then what we then do is to fill these up with warm water yes and screw them out but this is what i mean by engineering because if you look there's a tiny hole at the bottom yes and from that hole runs a tube can you see the tube yes now when we screw it out if it didn't have that air release it wouldn't come out you couldn't get it outside so as you as you screw it out the air goes down the hole into the cavity so this is really going to be a heavily engineered jelly yes it originated in victoria's uncle george's kitchen when he was prince regent so is this something that victoria would have eaten herself this was one of the most popular jellies of the 19th century um and she would have i'm sure had it a number of times it was it was so famous and so popular it contains pink champagne a drop of orange flower water some sugar syrup and a gelling agent i've got a pint and a half it's a quart mold so if i put a pint and a half of the mixture in because it'll obviously come up because yeah if you now pop them in yes this is very exciting so we're going to pop it down very carefully it's got a hinge either side yeah that locks it exactly into position so the tubes are you know directly above the little features at the bottom now that's it all we do now is we just leave it for an hour or so on the ice right and then we go on to the next stage i'll be finishing the jelly later i can't wait while below stairs is all of a quiver upstairs is all of a sparkle one of the most delightful and ingenious aspects of the pavilion is the clever interplay of light on interior decoration queen victoria was particularly taken by this and she writes in her journal the whole pavilion has been done up and re-gilt and looks very fresh and pretty an effect that i can assure you would have taken many thousands of manas this wildly over-the-top gilding which is such a huge feature of the pavilion seems rather odd for a holiday home by the sea but then there's no accounting for royal taste or lack of it [Music] the gilding was particularly effective when hit by hard shafts of light striking these cunning horizontal slitty windows which are set about all the domes above the principal reception rooms are either banqueting hall the music room and the saloon the magical lighting effects inside continued even after dark because servants would come out rain or shine winter or summer after dark and light great gas lamps outside these windows creating effectively more daylight to come through the glass and transform and enhance the experience [Music] within [Music] now i'm escaping the guilt and the gordiness for an exciting exploration of the pavilion's downstairs world or should that be upstairs curator david bieber's is taking me to see one of the most extraordinary rooms in the house usually off limits to the public this had better be worth it 56 57 [Music] david that's a long way up it yes is where are we now where have you bought me up to it's an area of the pavilion that the public don't come to called the bottle i mean it's a wonderfully evocative area and in the past as you can see people have come up here and rather unauthorized and here's somebody called priscilla davidson an early one who was here in august 1879. something like that that's fantastic [Music] so tell me what was this used for well it was originally intended we think for a billiard room uh but hauling a billiard table up here was rather ridiculous and so very soon it became servants quarters really they were yes and these were valid quarters it wasn't just the servants who were able to enjoy this room with a view victoria herself came up here on the night she arrived because victoria does say that she watched fireworks it's a lovely thought isn't it victoria standing about where you are yeah looking out of the window there over the steam and seeing fireworks in her honor she must have loved it actually she must have had quite a sort of jolly time i'm sure she did yes yes i'm sure she did yes it's so unique and it's so odd it is it's not being touched it's got it's wallpaper it's got graining on the doors that's all original so it's an untouched part of the pavilion and it's very evocative i think [Music] but when victoria wasn't in the mood for jolly times or the garish interiors had got the better of her she'd retire here to her own private apartments interestingly the decor is much plainer than the rest of the house we think at her request perhaps it's an early sign of the serious side of the young queen this is borne out by her diary in which she tells us she was reading oliver twist and is clearly intrigued by the descriptions of squad advice starvation and workhouses victoria asked her trusted prime minister lord melbourne who arrived on boxing day if such things were true he replied that in many schools they give children the worst things to eat and bad beer to save expense there you are no jamie oliver of course for the 19 year old queen the contrast with her own life was huge she only had to sneeze and a maid would come running indeed here next to her majesty's bedroom is the wardrobe maids room she was one of the upper servants who had direct contact with the queen four other dressers lived in tiny rooms above the main bedroom and they were also expected to be at her beck and call 24 7. talking of staff how is my mad servant doing downstairs what i'm going to do is i'm going to start with the big one in the middle and fill it with warm water and that will melt the jelly around it and will enable me to release it so i can immediately start screwing it out of the jelly remember it's a spiral and it just comes out of the jelly like a screw clever like that leaving the cavity we've now got to very carefully fill the smaller ones with warm water and very carefully twist those out and we can tear the wall there's a very small gap between the big one and the small one what i'm worried about is is this collapsing it makes my hair stand on end actually when i do this in this kitchen because i get the feeling this was such a popular mould in its day that i'm sure this has been done in this space before oh it sends a shiver up my spine to do it it really does it's an extraordinary thing of bringing history to life through food this is one of those things that we forget these people had incredible skill and they were working in kitchens without electricity without refrigeration and they could do things that modern restaurant chefs cannot do with very limited technology so finally there we are they're all done all we need to do now rosemary is for you to fill them with the orange flower flavour shall i start starting the big one that makes sense i've got to be very steady the blamange is poured into the cavities in the jelly making a fab two-toned effect when the diner cuts through if i can keep a steady hand despite the kitchen being cutting edge for its time there were no fancy fridges for the chefs at the pavilion but there were other ways of keeping things cool well that's all done i'll put it on the ice you go and put it in the ladder and that's finished [Music] while she was staying at the pavilion for christmas the young queen occupied herself in a variety of ways once she'd been dressed and her hair had been done she'd play music try her hand at lace making receive dispatches and letters as she tells us in her journal after dawdling about for quite some time i received a long letter from the queen dowager from malta and one from lady normanbee she also loved to read but more than any of the above it seems she loved to ride throughout her visit victoria tells us that she adored riding out along the south coast the stables are situated across the garden at the back of the pavilion underneath that magnificent dome she writes in her diary of days spent riding along the cliffs i got on midnight who i like very much his trot is charming and i like his gallop very much too brighton must have been enthralled by such a spectacle it was quite something seeing the tiny queen poofing it towards you on a majestic steed giddy up [Music] while we're waiting for our special champagne jelly to set ivan is giving me the lowdown on other jellies starting with those made popular by victoria's uncle george and still around during her reign first how to get the blighters out of their molds now to get this one out you have to give it a really good shake yes and get the air right up and you get it right in the middle like me let's see if it comes out it's come out perfectly but this particular jelly will misbehave in a way just put it down it's quite remarkable isn't it i mean that is ridiculous just have a little play with it go on get it get it moving not too fierce you'll see it'll also destruct if you move it around too much now for me this says everything about the prince regent really this is his style of jelly it's absolutely he was a naughty boy well they just must have blessed them do you think victoria would have loved that too would she have seen that i think actually this was something she would have disapproved on the these are really the the age of victoria's childhood and she disapproved of her uncle george and all of the other naughty he was a naughty boy they all were yes imagine the tension in the kitchen if hrh was upstairs especially when things don't always go according to plan it's going now these sometimes take a little bit of time here we go oh no oh no no it's um that one's a miserable failure and when serving royalty there's no room for error yeah okay so basically i've got to just find where it goes and put it on they weren't just there for their comic value during queen victoria's reign jellies were often commemorative this one made later in victoria's reign features the brunswick star that her son edward prince of wales wore and this danish flag in a jelly represented his danish wife princess alexandra it's a his and hers pudding today we'd use a few cubes of jelly set in a mixing bowl but these creations were far more elaborate even this milk jelly was carefully flavored with almond and rose water and colored with strawberry and black carrot juice they got totally carried away with these wobbly wonders i can see the attraction [Music] all we have to do now is get our champagne jelly out in one piece no pressure then my heart's in my mouth so okay now sometimes you get wonderful gurgling noises so just let's be quiet and just listen to a sound of victorian jelly coming out of the mold oh it's just a treat to behold it really is this i think is a little gem it's wonderful it's a real gem i can't wait to see what it tastes like remind you of anything maybe the jellies had brought a smile to victoria's face as it seems from her diary she was rather enjoying her visit she describes staying up very late having amusing evenings until christmas day arrived when she moans in her diary that she went to chapel and was rather unimpressed with the sermon delivered by the bishop of chichester she states it was rather slow but it seems things improved as the day went on she says dinner was a lively affair with 20 assembled nobles and dignitaries who were agreeable amusing and animated all in all from her diary entries victoria enjoyed her visit to brighton and it seems she's not the only one well rosemary it looks to me as if you had a quiveringly good day tim it's an engineering feat it is so exciting i can't tell you and it's made with champagne pink champagne and orange flower yum yum can i have it now yes but you're going to have to help yourself so what i think we should do is we should go around the outside and then just take a little bit this is difficult to control right oh well oh my gosh i've had a complete collapse here okay when stand up i'm not going to get there standing out i'm going to get my napkin out though before i start dribbling oh look at her face oh look at that that is delicious to me this is just an extravaganza on the table it's wonderful and actually i think that this goes with the pavilion because this is so over the top everything's over the top it's extraordinary well that's quite something i have to say more jelly vicar absolutely despite her overblown surroundings and light-hearted puddings victoria's new year resolution written in her diary reveals a young queen who was far from frivolous a teenager who clearly took the job seriously she says almighty god preserve me safely through this year and make me daily more fit for my station victoria's and our time at brighton may be at an end but join us next time when our journey continues to schoon on the east coast of scotland which has a very different flavor oh you're right their pets [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 173,717

Rating: 4.9068613 out of 5

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, victorian royal cooking, victorian jelly, victorian dessert, champagne jellies, queen victoria

Id: 8dnyF1RRpIA

Length: 28min 42sec (1722 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/orange_teapots]

I recently found this show on YouTube and there’s historians visit places Queen Victoria went and make recipes of things she would have been served. This one made me laugh!