Queen Victoria's Amazing Christmas Dinner | Royal Recipes | Real Royalty

[Music] hello i'm michael burke welcome to a brand new series of royal recipes this time we're at western bird house formerly a grand country house now a boarding school which has played host to royal visitors for over a hundred years in this series we're delving even further back in time to reveal over 600 years of royal food heritage you play amberlin and i will play henry viii and we've been busy unlocking the secrets of britain's great food archives discovering rare and unseen recipes that have been royal favorites through the ages from the earliest royal cookbook in 1390 it's so precious so special that i'm not allowed to touch it to tudor treats from the court of henry viii i can't wait for this one two three we'll be exploring the great culinary traditions enjoyed by the royal family from the grand to the groundbreaking as well as the surprisingly simple i did think that was going to be a disaster as we hear from a host of royal chefs prince philip would walk past or pop his head in what's for dinner what we having yeah oh yeah it's not just a normal kitchen and meet the people who provide for the royal table it's okay for the queen it's okay for everyone welcome to royal recipes in today's program we're exploring royal extravagance and in the past they didn't do things by halves some of the culinary extravaganzas produced by royal chefs down the centuries were legendary today on royal recipes we discover the scale of one royal appetite this is a banquet with more than 120 different dishes chef anahar is on a secret mission i'm afraid at this point i'm going to have to put a blindfold on you and we'll hear about the lengths of would-be suitor went to to win the hand of a queen he spent so much money that he bankrupted himself for the rest of his life i'm here in the royal recipes kitchen with michelin star chef paul ainsworth what's cooking mock turtle suit mock turtles as opposed to real turf yes as opposed to there's no turtles around here no turtles have been harmed in the production of this program okay now this is uh as served uh at a dinner christmas dinner uh for queen victoria and the royal family uh in 1895 osborne house her favorite palace on the isle of wight first course turtle soup what do you do i've been so excited about showing you this recipe because i love it so much in here i've just taken some of this beautiful consummate how long does it take to get that meat there into that consomme there right that meat will go into a pan with those vegetables that you can see around the plaza that will come up to a simmer and then actually cook for seven hours okay really slowly and then all of that lovely gelatinous quality that's in the trotters and especially the shin of beef will be going into the stock we then sieve that off reduce it right down and then we get to the stage where we then make consummate so you'd bring the stock up to the boil whisk in some egg whites very gently let the egg whites rise to the top and as the egg white's rising to the top it's dragging all the impurities with it underneath will be crystal clear stock it's so intense in flavor we're just going to put into this pan a little bit of that consummate some peeled and finely chopped celery peeled and finely chopped carrot and peeled and finely chopped swede right now we want to get the flavor happening straight away so we're just gonna crush some sea salt just in there and leave it like so now we're going to move over to where the mop turtle come from so basically um this recipe was used with green turtles um but they were seen as a stasis symbol very very expensive so the mock came in for the people that couldn't afford the green turtles they would use things like beef shin yeah pig's trotters tongue because it had the same gelatinous rich qualities that you could jelly jelly the gelatin the greens the turtle would have had the original turtle soup was a byproduct of the slave trade the sailors in the west indies would catch the turtles they'd bring them back home and the aristocracy saw this rather liked it it became very fashionable very elegant particularly at big banquets in fact real tradition at the lord mayor's banquet turtle soup yeah but because they loved them so much they caught them 15 000 a year were coming to britain but they were hunted to extinction so they were either just too expensive or not available at all so people had to try and find something that tasted like turtle to go in the soup hence mock turtle so all right what are you going to do now so next nothing gets wasted we've then shredded the meat off of the trotter yeah the tongue we've diced and the beach in there yeah we've got now leave those out picked at room temperature okay so they're gonna go over there ready for when we plate up next which was quite traditional with this recipe was what they called a forced meat ball it's lucky of course i mean stuffing it absolutely so if you could add into that bowl for me we've got some finely chopped smoked bacon bread crumbs and suet there's a spoon okay all right yeah we'll do good i'm gonna go behind you and grab do you remember this bowl in uh lewis carroll's alice's adventures in wonderland isn't it yes there was a mock turtle yes there was and the mock turtle had a calves head it was a turtle's body yeah with a calves head presumably because they made made this soup from carv's head as well so traditionally traditionally that there will be a calf said yep okay i'm gonna add in one egg so carry on mixing please michael okay seasoning yeah always seasoning always seasoning right i'm just gonna get our pan on because once we've made these dumplings we're gonna fry them off right last yeah but not least some beautiful fresh chopped parsley right and a good twist of cracked black pepper now and this is your first meat dumpling okay should i do that go on have a go it's just a matter of on the on the tray just about rolling it now it is all the chef in business is simple isn't it easy excellent our vegetables are nice and ready to go so in here michael i've just got a little bit of oil and basically the oil will make sure the butter won't burn and then the butter has given us that wonderful flavor over here we're going to take our dumplings yep right then just into here and just move them around in the pan like so a little bit more butter and then we'll just turn our heat down just a touch royal christmas dinner osborne house it was uh victoria's favorite palace you know on the isle of wight that was where she retreated after her husband prince albert died right went into almost complete seclusion for a very very long time long period of morning wore black for years and years and years she had all her children and grandchildren there these days the royals have christmas at sunrium don't they but uh victoria was so fond of osbourne on the isle of wight she was there in august you know for cows week and all that kind of stuff and at christmas as well that may look wonderful they certainly do and they're ready wow look at them they're gorgeous aren't they they certainly just put those over here and now we're going to start to plate up yep right so i'm going to take a little bit of this shredded shin some of that beautiful shredded um pig strawberry lovely tongue going around the outside so taste and texture there and texture every day now we've got those lovely vegetables going over the top finely diced vegetables yeah and they're just nice and softened beautifully seasoned with that stock yeah now we've got our dumplings ah right you're you're draining them just draining them off okay just and the reason for is that the butter's done its job see how crispy they are on the outside we don't want that fat to then go into our lovely consummate that we've made okay okay so we're just gonna put three on top like so like that okay now don't pull the consummate over the top go from the side okay this is a real british classic dish isn't it paul in fact in the 30s heinz even uh did a tin version of it did they really yeah i bet that was that was delicious now come on don't be let me know i'm sure it was great but it wasn't anything like this no i absolutely love this recipe so much can i get it for yeah it's the consummate bit is really intense yeah and you've got so many different textures and so many different flavors you can see why it was such a principal part of all those big ceremonial banquets it's really substantial isn't it it is and yet you know christmas christmas dinner 1895 this was just the first course after that they had turbot lobster turkey with chipolatas [Laughter] asparagus mince pies plum pudding chocolate declare and on the side they had baron of beef boar's head game pie brown and hot roast beef my goodness it really like blows me away how much they would consume back then it's you know really rich eating and living isn't it yeah yeah absolutely but mock turtle soup absolutely delicious and not a single turtle was harmed in making this dinner a modern meaty take on a dish originally a staple of 18th century sailors and the georgian aristocracy [Music] georgian royalty certainly had a taste for the finer things of life and this was reflected in the ingredients used in royal cooking in the 18th century truffles were often used to flavor sauces and gravies these days many of the truffles we consume come from overseas but there's a growing trend for uk truffle farming so precious is the crop that today's truffle producers insist on complete secrecy chef anahar went to meet truffle hunter zach frost and his truffle dog stanley i'm afraid at this point i'm going to have to put a blindfold on you and lead you the rest of the way so if you don't mind just uh slipping this on okay you're gonna have to guide me though okay stand the man don't trip me off this way these woods are somewhere in wiltshire and absolutely bristling with wild truffles i think you can now take the uh marshall so this is it welcome to the truffle woods so can we go truffle hunting yeah why not let's find some truffles the peak season for english truffles is the autumn when the damp cold conditions give them their pungent aroma but they'd be almost impossible to find without stanley so has winter always been famous for truffle hunting well yeah it has actually there's been a tradition of truffle hunting and wheelchair going back uh a few centuries there were once a number of professional truffle hunters in the area supplied truffles to the gentry in london and the royal family they were always a luxury product and then the most famous of these was the collins family particularly eli collins who for many years was the premier truffle hunter of the area and held a royal warrant as well and he was a part of six generations of truffle hunters but then his son alfred was the last of the line and that was around the 1930s [Music] and what about the demise of truffle hunting there's a number of factors there's the modern farming methods a lot of the old woodlands were cleared and the big issue also was the two world wars where a lot of young men died and they were they were obviously distracted from things like truffle hunting and then the secrets weren't really passed on to the next generation it's only recently it's been reawakened and english truffles are back on the menu wow and seemingly back on the royal menu in 2006 the duke of edinburgh planted a one-acre truffle orchard at sandringham in the hope that it will one day provide for the royal kitchens is that truffle stan shout out to me oh thank you clever boy good boy you see here we find a whole nest of uh about oh wow this one's definitely starting to develop a little bit of an aroma yeah and as you see there's a i mean there's a whole collection of them here really they often grow in in big groups wow oh my god that's huge there's so much that i love about truffles i do like the idea that through the year that you get different uh varieties of truffles so you can use them in different ways that it's the the finishing touch to make a dish perfect [Music] it's back to zack's place to scrub the truffles clean [Music] what inspired you to make the jump into truffle hunting really just kind of fell into it because um i started hunting the truffles purely for the love of doing it i loved hunting them i loved eating them and so chefs started to ask me if they could buy them so really became a very natural progression to start a proper business well from the taste i had of truffle hunting today i can understand where you kind of get the thrill and the passion of it it's so exciting and there's this um there's nothing else i'd rather be doing really the big trouble now is keeping up with demand it's little wonder for chefs like anna truffles can make all the difference to the flavor of a dish and that's reflected in the price of autumn truffles 250 grams of these pearls of the earth will cost you around 200 pounds in the shops but really the shape and the size and everything is completely irrelevant compared to the aroma much better have an ugly truffle or a tiny trouble or anything that smells amazing beautiful in the right dishes truffles are such a delicious treat aren't they they add richness and warmth as well as flavour don't they they do now are you going to put truffles in the next dish i am what you're going to do with roast pheasant this is a dish that was served at perhaps the most lavish banquet ever really given by the prince regent for the grand duke nicholas in january 1817 tell you more about it in a minute how do you start right whenever you're using truffle do not slice it too thick because when it's nice and thin what happens is it cooks and whatever and that's where you're gonna get most of its flavor if it's too thick you don't get that it's incredible isn't it hitting it right in the nose so what i've got here it's also very expensive so very expensive yeah yeah yeah yeah get the most out of it that's the main reason so what we've got here are pheasants on the crown so pheasant can become very dry very quickly if you're roasting it on the bone you've got the best possible chance of keeping it lovely and moist so we're just going to take our bird like so yeah just pull the skin back let's jack it up bullets jackets up that's right okay now i'm just going to take some of this truffle and poke it underneath the skin yeah fold that back down yeah and that is just packed full of truffle underneath that breast like so i'm going to do the same with the other one now over there i've got a nice thick heavy bottom pan like a proper casserole pan the best way i feel to cook this is we want to roast it on the outside course you want that lovely roast pheasant flavor but then we wanna for me poach it almost like steam it okay so we're just gonna keep it moist absolutely season it all over so here as well michael i've just got some cabbage which i've just softened down in a little bit of butter and some seasoning which is nice and simple it's a really rich winter meal it is and this will all come into play later so we're getting our oil here we want it nice and hot so when we when we add our pheasants into pan we've got that sizzle straight away that it said it there we go okay yep in like so okay all right now what i've done with the legs and the wings i've taken them off i've roasted them and then with the some of the carcass as well i've i've basically roasted that off and put it into chicken stock so then we've turned our chicken stock into pheasant stock it's a really major undertaking this isn't it a really big gift but and this is the amazing thing you know i said it was the most lavish banquet ever held or might have been yes here we are here's the menu look look how many dishes there are dozens and dozens and dozens of them and you think that's a lot it's only half of it because there's all that god there's all those as well there's more unbelievable this is a banquet with more than 120 different dishes the royal chef at the time who did the banquet was marie antoine very famous royal chef okay so what we're just continually roasting over that nice i want to get the color all over so while that's happening we're just going to chop some chives yeah you know these dishes weren't the only extravagant thing there they actually had a pastry model of the royal pavilion of brighton in the center of the table and they had a a kind of model a mock-up of a turkish mosque made out of marzipan that was four feet high in the center of the table as well four feet high yeah out of marzipan and marzipan incredible extravagant or what now look at that wow okay roasted pheasant right next yeah same pan all that lovely flavor yeah let's just add in a little bit of butter yeah okay pancetta yeah okay basically bacon all right we want to work quickly here michael okay so we want that here you're moving fast you're moving fast right we've got carrot onion and celery in like so all very finely diced all very finely diced bay leaf just tear it a little bit let the oils come out just one okay they leave strong some thyme gorgeous stuff hmm you're motoring now paul we're motoring now white wine oh a really nice dry white wine yeah like that just a glug now over here that wonderful stock that i told you about yeah okay the wings and the uh the legs they've done their job okay now we just need that wonderful infused liquor gosh that looks rich that's marvelous next give it a good stir now we go back to our wonderful pheasants pop those in the pot like so now stand them up as well michael so that the the breast is on top yeah the breast meat is on top and now the lid will go on yeah like that okay that's going to go in the oven if you could pop it in there for me and you know what it's going to be a lot less than you think 12 to 15 minutes because remember it's a breast it's not a it's not a shin or beef or something or a shoulder of lamb it's something so delicate yeah but now for me that is the best way to cook pheasant for just 12 minutes just 12 minutes 12 15 minutes what sort of temperature 170 degrees all right so quite a low heat as well you're okay with that yeah no no i'm fine okay and just on the side michael there's another one resting okay thanks these dishes are amazing they're so heavy want me to pop it on here that'd be lovely thank you very much so we're just going to lift off the lid yeah look at that oh yeah outcome our pheasants gosh they look good and we're just going to let them rest on this platter over here right so in here i've got some cabbage which has been softened down in the butter like i said earlier and i'm just now gonna add some mashed potato to it i've just seasoned it michael with some sea salt and some crushed black pepper and you're mixing that all together you're just going to mix that with you're not serving it separately no now here in my sauce i'm just going to add a little touch of cream not much okay just a little touch of cream like so one more you didn't put much in though no it didn't no so i've got a little separate pan here i'm going to take some of our chives and i'm going to have some of the chives for the sauce okay like so and we're going to have some of the chives to go through the mashed potato and cabbage and we're almost there god it smells so good right over here michael as i scoop up i want the bacon and the vegetables right okay that ready to go okay absolutely beautiful mashed potato so we're just going to serve up michael like so it's out of the way there we go now it all looks so good doesn't it right now where are you going to be i'm always interested in where you put the sauce you put it all over the top over the mashed potato everywhere around like so pheasant skin isn't particularly crispy so don't worry about that it's all about flavour wow now the last thing to go over the top of this is more bit more truffle beautiful truffle ready um oh it does look good doesn't it roast pheasant with truffles gross present with truffles or as mary antoine karem described it les faison oh there we go and some truffle yeah absolutely and that pheasant should be just beautifully moist oh yeah it is moist wonderful texture wonderful taste and the truffles really intensifying everything you know 120 dishes but this must have been the highlight a luxurious dish from an extravagant banquet thrown by an indulgent prince [Music] a king who knew a thing or two about the high life was henry viii and 500 years ago one of his royal palaces was the scene of some very lavish spending leeds castle in kent was transformed by henry into a magnificent residence for his first wife catherine dr polly russell went along to find out more henry wanted his queen catherine of aragon to feel really at home here and he spent a small fortune and a number of years between 1517 and 1523 renovating leeds castle to bring it bang up to date [Music] historian annie kemkaran smith takes up the story henry viii spent a lot of money here to improve the castle and actually turn it into a pleasure palace more than a defensible castle from 1517 through to 1523 we know that the steward here henry gilford was given between two and 300 pounds every year to improve the castle and make it into a palace that's somewhere in the region of a hundred thousand pounds a year in today's money he wanted it to be hung with luxurious tapestries he wanted there to be feasting and partying here there are no records to tell us the detail of all of henry and catherine stays at leeds castle but one visit is very well documented we know that there was one particular date where an extraordinary feast took place can you tell me about that in 1520 henry and catherine and their retinue of over 5000 people came here to leeds castle and spent one night so traveling with 5 000 people i mean that is completely extraordinary i mean was this typical of his extravagance what do we know about you know him and his relationship to wealth i think it is typical he was used to extravagance he was all about display and pomp and ceremony so for him traveling with over 5000 people was just par for the course the logistics involved in you know all those people where are they going to sleep how do you feed them do we have any documents which tell us what was actually eaten what was actually prepared here that amazing night well we know that the steward here henry gilford he did have warning of them coming for their one night of five thousand people for a big dinner and he got given just over 66 pounds to prepare for it which was a large amount of money a well-paid laborer at that time would have earned about 10 pounds in a year so it's effectively the the year's wages of six full-time workers for one night apart one night one night of partying that's not bad you can only imagine what fun and feasting took place here fortunately for us there's a shopping list that gives us an idea of what was on the menu there's this ledger from the time which gives the household accounts just the section on fish tells us that a certain john of antwerp was paid for supplying an enormous quantity of fish i mean for example uh he provides 9100 place i mean imagine just just the site of 9100 place extraordinary and then down here it actually uh suggests three porpoises i mean that also is extraordinary we obviously don't eat porpoise now and nor would most people have eaten porpoise that was really the food of kings deer from the leeds castle estate and were definitely killed and provided for this one night we also know that the dairy went into overdrive and provided lots of goods for people to eat during their stay here that's really interesting what documents like this tell us is how extraordinary and opulent and excessive this event was and this feasting was but that was only the warm-up to the main event the gathering was a stop off on route to a rendezvous near calais with the french king francis the first in a meeting which has come to be known as the field of the cloth of gold this is the 5 000 descending upon calais that this meeting is called the field of the cloth of gold is evidence that it must have been extraordinary as a spectacle of all the gold cloth the guilt i mean these two renaissance princes were they were determined to establish who was the most absolutely powerful handsome the whole meeting i think was about outdoing one another in the friendliest of ways so instead of going to war with each other they've decided to have this great big event where they meet they joust with each other they even wrestle with each other at some point and francis actually overthrows henry which i'm sure didn't go down that well but the whole thing on both kings parts was to outshine the other and henry did his part by building massive tents made out of cloth of gold that shimmered in the sunlight and had massive feasting and dancing and banqueting and jousting it's the ultimate last night out isn't it it really is yeah the 29 year old henry's extraordinary lads night out had lasting repercussions for his reign we know that when he went out to france to meet francis the first for the field of the cloth of gold meeting the money that he spent on everything out there pretty much bankrupted england when it came to extravagance henry viii was in a league of his own wine food entertainment that man could throw a party i just wish that i'd been there [Music] ah started without me what do you do i've got some beautiful caramelized lamb's liver make some drip gorgeous cabbage look how beautiful deep and green that is cooked in butter some salt some pepper yeah i'm just gonna chop up this beautiful lamb's liver and fold it through the cabbage where's my fork and then over on the plate there i've got some stunning beautifully cooked fluffy rice looks nice absolutely does doesn't it yes where's my delicious no it's not for you what this is for the corgis are you serious i'm serious is this what they this is what the corruption royal corgis eat yeah look at that god the royals certainly have the best of everything and that goes for the corgis does it they do this isn't yet so keep your hands off and then just on top i'm just gonna shave some beautiful truffle you know she's had corgis all her life more than 80 years you know the first one her father king george vi brought dookie his name was in 1933 and she's had 30 corgis since then latest one is called whisper whisper yeah yeah yeah used to be able to be owned by the groundsman at um sandringham up in norfolk he died unfortunately uh and she's adopted whisper she loves horses as well had a pony when she was four right okay and of course famously has all those racehorses two thousand winners she had two thousand winners yeah yeah i wonder what she feeds them yes they're very messed up indeed yeah with a sauce vinaigrette maybe a raspberry coulis truffle she is a dedicated fan of horse racing and the horsiest event of the year is royal ascot one of the most high profile events in the social calendar we know what the queen's animals eat but what about royal guests at ascot [Music] someone who's in the know is michelle starred chef michael keynes in 2015 he cooked for 180 people at the royal enclosure at ascot today i'm making a warm salad of lobster with a curry mayonnaise and a vinaigrette of mango and cardamom so to start with we're going to make the vinaigrette i'm using green cardamom which is great but just to break up the shells we're going to put them in a pestle and mortar so that we get the flavour of the seeds coming out so i chose this recipe for alaska because it really does champions the best of british using lobster as a beautiful product but also a little bit of nod to the commonwealth using the spices from india as us inspiration for this dish we're going to add the spice to this stock syrup which is equal amounts of sugar and water brought up to the boil and we're just going to let that cook out just to extract all of that wonderful flavor michael then adds the juice of a lime and it's zest this will make a gas streak a sweet and sour sauce [Music] the day at esco it's incredible really it's a week of celebration so we were cooking for 180 covers every day in the top restaurant and of course when the queen of the queen arrived we also had to send food down for her party as well and obviously the sense of royalty in the world occasion is something which is not lost on you when you're cooking while the sauce reduces michael makes a start on the salad he's using ratay potatoes a small variety that's packed with flavor we're going to cook them simply using some garlic and lots of thyme and bay leaf and then just water just to cover as the potatoes cook michael prepares the mango for the salad you know there's always pressure in the kitchen but in particular royal ascot 180 covers this particular dish wanting to execute it perfectly every time with so much pressure but at the same time so enjoyable so that's the mango ready and now we're ready for potatoes these are cooked so we're going to strain them off using a colander and once they're cooled down we'll peel them and dice them to prevent the reduced gastrique from crystallizing michael adds glucose it's then sieved and combined with the mango puree to make the vinaigrette lid on let's get that blending now gradually add the oil a little bit of seasoning salt and pepper [Music] and there we have our mango vinaigrette and that's ready after steaming for eight minutes the lobster is ready we must have cracked about 500 lobsters for the week so massive jobs all the lobsters came from brixton uh devon so all using british produce i've got some i've prepared already for the actual presentation so i'm just going to use this lobster to dice meat is lovely and sweet and they go extremely well with the vinaigrette and of course the curry mayonnaise which i'll be making next for that i'm going to be using vegetable oil and we're going to heat that with a madras curry powder the curry sauce is added to the mix of mayonnaise and greek yogurt you can add as little or as much as you like but the main thing to remember is not to overpower those delicate flavors off the lobster and then we're going to add a squeeze of lime juice and an additional pinch of cardamom and spice okay so now we're ready for the potato salad so you can imagine being at this restaurant right at the top of the main grandstand overlooking the racecourse with thousands of people out enjoying the racing and of course the possession of the royal horses coming with the cream on the carriage but it was such an amazing occasion the salad's different elements are now ready to be brought together so we're going to start off with the mango and then our potato [Music] and finally the lobster to this we're going to add our finely chopped mint and now we're going to mix that with our curry mayonnaise that we made all that remains is to warm the lobster through so we're going to heat that through the oven for about 2-3 minutes 180 degrees so while that's in the oven heating up we're going to start to dress our dish and finally it's time to add those all-important and elegant finishing touches and now for a little bit of caviar obviously for something like royal ascot we're using all of the finest ingredients so there we have it warm salad of lobster with curried mayonnaise and a vinaigrette of mango and cardamom a wonderful dish and what a great day to remember every royal banquet paul needs a show stopper it's a big ask but you're not going to fall at this hood like have you got a show stop i'll never let you down michael yes i have a march pan rose much pan rose what's this pan a very very early version of marzipan what they would do is they would bake it so it goes actually quite hard almost like a biscuit and that's what we're going to do right now and this march pan rose was a centerpiece of one of the most extraordinary royal banquets given for elizabeth the first in 1575. so let's get on with it what's what do you do first icing sugar into this bowl ground almonds goes in like so and then if you could just drizzle in some of this rose water for me rose water yeah okay okay it's infused and distilled infused and distilled that's it you can almost smell it it's almost like a perfume it is okay okay slowly slowly that's it and i'm just gonna mix until i basically form a dough this banquet held in elizabeth's honor was the most sumptuous expensive there particularly with how much sugar was used and remember in the 16th century sugar was incredibly expensive this would have been one of 300 sweet dishes at the banquet 300 including sugar sculptures and everything for loads and loads of people because elizabeth was up at visiting kennelworth with a whole entourage and they went up there for three whole weeks and this was the bank of it at the end of it right that's a snowball isn't it it is isn't it so we're just going to get that bowl out of our way yep what next and now we're going to move on to rolling it between two sheets this is fairly simple so far this is not stretching you're stretching you too much in fact the whole recipe to be fair is actually very very simple now push it down like that and we're going to take a rolling pin and just roll it and what we want to do michael is we want to keep a circle and with mark you know like with marzipan now we kind of will leave it sort of soft and use it as kind of cake decorating and you know some of the things you can make out of marzipan are incredible i think much of that must have happened at this banquet there's a really good story behind it because she was up at kenilworth with her whole entourage as guests of robert dudley earl of leicester right who of course everybody thought were was her lover at the time and he rather hoped he was going to be able to marry her so she was there for three weeks whole entourage he laid on banquets he laid on everything right because he thought he was going to marry the queen of england and he spent so much money on it that he almost bankrupted himself for the rest of his life for those three weeks and particularly this particular banquet for what it cost him that's incredible it is isn't it i'll put that that will then go into the fridge just to set up take that top piece of parchment paper off into the oven 150 for about 20 minutes okay so bake like a biscuit okay so you get this okay oh yeah so now in here we've got uh icing sugar which we're just gonna whis again if you could help me out again if you can start pouring water into there yeah and we're just gonna make this ordinary water this is ordinary water yeah we're gonna make fondant icing okay swap that one out and we're just gonna add a little bit of rose water okay just for a bit of flavor just a touch just a touch okay rosie that's enough i bet she like rose water because the reason she used to go on tour like lots of medieval and late medieval monarchs would go on tour every summer because their palaces stank yeah palace is in london there's always the threat of plague of course yeah so they used to go on george in the summer and the palaces were all cleaned and fumigated and the cesspits were cleaned out and everything so they smelled all right well you know she had the rose water and those pomanders you know they can stick around orange with the clothes in it that you can walk around so she doesn't have to smell all these things i think i think medieval and tudor england must have smelled rather very smelly yeah now we're just gonna flood this all over this biscuit get it all in there yep like so that looks good okay next we're going to put that one back and that at room temperature doesn't have to go to the fridge after half an hour it'll set entirely by itself at room temperature yeah yeah to resemble a bit like your ice bucket yeah it is like a nice bun right here we have oh those are rather nice aren't they yes so the same mixture so this kind of march pan style kind of biscuits yeah almost they're oh these are two roses emblem of the tudor dynasty and hearts by the way and i remember there's romance here yes this is robert dudley spending all his fortune trying to impress queen elizabeth so she'll marry him yeah where does the colour come from so their hearts have just been sprayed so you basically can get that in all good kind of cooking shops it's just a gold spray and then the tudor roses we've just painted with red food dye and all we're gonna do is put the a rose followed by a heart followed by a rose all the way around it's a bit of a hint isn't it yeah it is it is it is i think he was a very very thoughtful man he was not a very lucky man in this case there was he no that looks really nice it does doesn't it yeah and that michael is my march pan rose how are we going to attack it right i'm going to cut you a nice wedge yeah a segment yes actually doesn't feel as kind of uh biscuity it's i was expecting it to be a bit more like a crunchier as you go in but it's actually very much like marzipan and i'll just give you a little bit of rose here as well oh yeah like a bit of tudor rose yeah there we go that looks good it's quite a bit to get in your mouth at one go you know very mousy pan texture isn't it a rose petal comes across a lot it's marzipanish without being marzipan it's nice and sweet which is what the tudors wanted yeah the sweetness i'm surprised you didn't marry him after that i am as well all that work and effort funny isn't it to think that we think of elizabeth with her blackened teeth and bad breath and all that kind of stuff is you know horrible but but actually she was the height of fashion having black teeth intuited times was a sign you're wealthy because only the wealthy could afford sugar so some of them even painted their teeth black amazing had all changes 1575 actually a really good dish well done join us next time for more royal recipes

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 208,308

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, henry viii, henry viii wives, henry viii and his six wives, henry viii documentary bbc, henry viii death, henry viii and france, henry viii and francis i relationship, henry viii and francis i wrestling, field of cloth of gold, field of cloth of gold wrestling, field of the cloth of gold the tudors

Id: qDgUeSue8fM

Length: 43min 25sec (2605 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021