From chocolate coins to sugar mice, everyone has a festive favourite.
Last year, we spent a phenomenal 800 million on sweets and chocolate
in the run-up to Christmas.
But this 21st-century spending spree has a long history,
as four modern-day professionals are about find out.
Our sweet-makers have already travelled through four centuries of
confectionery history,
grappling with archaic equipment and long-forgotten ingredients.
Oh, it looks like a fingernail.
Now they're heading back to experience life as confectioners
in Christmases past.
I have to remind myself this is not a real boar.
Our modern sweet-makers will be exploring the origin of many of our
favourite Christmas treats, and then
also be recreating others that have been lost in the mists of time.
It tastes like Christmas, like a Christmas cookie.
They'll discover how confectioners
created new sweet traditions in three formative eras.
From grown-up Georgian spectacle...
Oh, now it's Christmas. Looks beautiful.
..to Victorian children's novelties.
Eight for a penny.
And finishing with the festive classics of a 1920s sweet shop.
Have a lovely Christmas.
Our sweet-makers will discover that
the confectionery we enjoy over the festive period not only reflects,
but has also helped to shape the very way we celebrate Christmas.
Oh, my favourite.
Green triangle.
At Blists Hill in Shropshire, four confectioners are starting
their journey back in time to Christmases past.
I love Christmas.
Christmas is the epitome of everything that I do.
Diana Short is a trained chef and chocolatier.
We work for about four months of the year towards Christmas,
so Christmas is everything in our business.
Andy Baxendale is a trouble-shooter for the confectionery industry.
I always associate, well, candy canes,
sugar mice and chocolates with Christmas, really.
If I had to make one product, it would have all those elements in it.
Oh, my God, I love Christmas.
Cynthia Stroud designs bespoke wedding cakes.
Christmas is the only time of year that you can wake up and have
chocolate from the beginning, you know? It's brilliant.
I love cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger.
But I like some of the things that are coming back,
so egg nog's a bit trendy this year.
Paul A Young runs two boutique chocolate shops.
I like the kind of classic and the modern mixed together.
Anything that makes you feel like you've got a hug on the inside.
They'll be needing all their skills
as they cook their way through three centuries of the festive fare.
And they're starting in the late 1700s,
where they'll be stocking their Georgian shop window with
enticing Yuletide treats.
Hello. Hello.
Seasons greetings.
Thank you. And welcome to Georgian Christmas.
Lovely. Excellent.
So, I'm sure we are aware
of the commercial opportunity that Christmas represents. Yeah.
These days, we spend over 70 billion...
Wow. ..in the run-up to Christmas.
There's a whole range of things that that's spent on, from decorations,
to party clothes, as well as kind of food and drink, as well.
But in the Georgian era, the emphasis was really on feasting.
With confectionery now hitting the high street,
of course it's a huge time for you.
I've got two bills here, confectioners' bills,
and just reading through them, just looking at them,
you can really see the impact that confectionery was having.
So, this one, which is 1766, they buy three things in June.
And then you get to December, and all of a sudden,
there are ten things in December.
And then on the 24th alone,
there's this whole other chunk of bits and pieces.
And they're spending over £3 on this -
so about £450 in today's money.
You've got things like Jordan almonds, fine raisins, clear cakes,
confits, orange drops - a pound of Angelica, as well.
So those flavours that are sweet, but are also very, very fruity.
That's really quintessentially what it's all about.
Nowadays, it's very much geared towards the 25th December.
Yes. But in the Georgian period,
festivities would start as early as the 6th of December,
and then really gearing up for Twelfth Night on the 6th of January.
6th to the 6th, a whole month?
So this is a month of carousing and drinking,
dancing and a general debauchery.
For the Georgians,
Christmas celebrations culminated on Twelfth Night.
In the Christian calendar,
this was the epiphany and marked the day the three Kings visited
the infant Jesus.
Twelfth Night had been celebrated since the Middle Ages,
and central to the feast was the Twelfth Cake -
a forerunner of our modern Christmas cake.
By the 1750s, confectioners had
turned what were once home-made cakes into beautifully
decorated centrepieces for their festive shop window.
To create the Twelfth Cakes for their shop,
our sweet-makers will be working in a kitchen stocked with only
the ingredients and equipment of the day.
Ooh! Ooh! I like this.
What's that? Pomegranates. Pomegranates.
Angelica root, yes.
That is amazing. Oh, is that what it is? You've got Angelica?
Guys, it's 24th of December.
Oh, Christmas Eve. Oh, my gosh.
As well as their cakes,
our confectioners will be filling their Georgian shop with enticing
festive delicacies sold during the era.
You remember the bills that we looked at?
Well, here they are again.
And on here are some very, very telling items.
So if we look down the list, we have Jordan almonds.
In 1766, four pounds of Jordan almonds cost six shillings -
the equivalent of around £40 today.
These imported luxuries were the basis of a festive treat which no
confectioner's window would be without.
Now, have you heard of a thing called a sugarplum?
Yeah. Yeah. Don't know what it is.
Any idea what it is? Sugarplum fairy.
A plum covered in sugar? No, you would be forgiven thinking it was,
and I always think there's something quite nice about the idea somehow of
having a plum sparkling.
Yeah. You often find mention of plums in Georgian recipes.
Things like plum pudding and plum pottage.
Plum just means dried fruit, but in this case, plum means a nut.
So it is a sugared almond. Sugared almonds! Wow.
Have a lot of fun. Thank you very much.
The sugarplum - or sugar almond - recipe comes from a 1772 book,
the Court And Country Confectioner.
It explains how the layers of sugar have to be slowly built up -
a process that can take all day.
So Paul and Andy are keen to get going.
So... Sugared almonds.
Lovely. So we need some almonds.
And we need to dry them in the balancing pan.
We've got our fire on, ready.
Yeah. So, I'm going to grab my stool.
OK, you warm those up. I'll make some gum arabic solution.
Smashing. Let's get these in.
The balancing pan is a piece of equipment confectioners have used
since Tudor times.
Suspended over a charcoal burner,
the pan slowly dries the nuts before they can be sealed with a syrup made
from sugar and gum arabic - a type of sap.
I'll just warm these through and take them out if I need to
because they might get a bit too hot.
It's really hard, this gum stuff.
It is interesting stuff, though, isn't it?
Exactly. It comes out of the side of the tree.
Wow. Are they nice and dry now?
They're very, very dry and just warm.
OK, coming over. OK. Great, we're ready.
Mind your fingers until I've got it on.
That is so much more syrupy than I thought it would be.
Woo, it's hot.
But they're drying, they're getting crystal-y.
They're getting well sealed. Yeah.
The ridges and the skin on the almonds are quite
good for holding on.
Probably best that we didn't blanch them, as well, because...
Oh, yeah, definitely.
The nuts will now need at least 20 coats of sugar syrup before becoming
the sweet temptations familiar to the Georgian customer.
I'm just thinking about how many layers of sugar we've got to get
on these to make them really smooth.
We'll share the load, I think. We'll take shifts.
The confectioners' clientele
included both the aristocracy and an increasingly
wealthy middle class who were keen to show off their new status.
They flocked to Britain's flourishing high streets
to spend money on luxury goods.
Enticed into a shop by familiar
festive treats such as sugarplums
and Twelfth Cake, browsing customers might be persuaded to try some new,
more exotic Christmas products.
Spongati?
Spongati. Or Italian Christmas cake.
Oh, Christmas cake!
It says five yolks of fresh eggs, 1lb 7oz of sugar.
OK. Bread.
Bread? Oh, breadcrumbs.
Almonds.
Cloves.
So, obviously, we have cinnamon and clove, it's all those sort of,
you know, Christmassy, gingerbread-y kind of spices.
Yeah. So this is going to be kind of like panforte, maybe.
In 1820, Italian confectioner Guglielmo Jarrin
introduced his London customers to spongati -
a Christmas treat from his hometown near Parma.
Jarrin was among a number of Italians who settled in London,
bringing their Christmas traditions with them.
Sugar.
Oh, yeah.
Gosh, this seems like a lot of sugar.
Spongati were a northern Italian winter treat,
claimed to have been made since Roman times.
This particular recipe features a spicy filling encased in a hard,
sugar paste shell.
This thing's really thirsty.
I feel like I'm adding loads and loads and loads of liquid
and it's just vanishing. How are you doing?
This is a nightmare, this stuff.
What you making? It's kind of like a panforte-type thing.
Oh, look! Spongati. Can I taste it? Yeah.
So it's kind of like a sugary, almond-y paste with spices,
held together with egg yolk. That is delicious. That is one
of the nicest things I think I might have ever eaten. Honestly. Wow.
VOICEOVER: With the shell and filling ready,
the spongati can now be assembled in wooden moulds.
Yeah, those, they are nice.
Right. So I grab wafer paper. Wafer paper.
So, if I take a bit of this...
So, this gets pressed in.
So it's, like, half a layer.
VOICEOVER: Intricate moulds, sometimes called boards or cards,
were often skilfully carved by the confectioners themselves.
Jarrin began his London career making moulds
for Twelfth Cake decorations.
It has to be quite a thin layer. I've never seen anything quite
like it, to be honest, the mould. That has not gone according to plan.
Hang on.
It's sticking more than I thought, to be honest.
Is it? Yeah, it's sticking to this wood here, as well.
Ooh. Oh! Much better!
Oh, look! Lovely.
That looks beautiful. That's better.
Do you think we should be singing a Christmas carol at this point?
# Good King Wenceslas looked out
# From his bedroom window On the feast of Stephen
# When the snow lay round about
# Deep and crisp and even
# Brightly shone the moon that night
# Though the frost was cru-el
# When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fu-el. #
That's the only verse I know. Me, too!
He was out for pizza, wasn't he? Eh? Deep pan, crisp and even.
LAUGHTER
Don't you want a taste?
Yes. Yes, please. Never had it, ever.
VOICEOVER: The spongati SHOULD be dried in a low oven overnight,
but our sweet-makers are eager to taste them straightaway.
It's... It tastes like Christmas. Like a Christmas cookie.
VOICEOVER: They never became a Christmas classic here,
but spongati are still eaten in the region around Palma in Italy,
where Jarrin came from.
I would make those. Beautiful. I was thinking I would make those.
Great presents for people. Yeah. I'd make those.
Unusual, as well. A little bit of chocolate on the bottom there. Oh...
Whilst spongati were a new import,
many of the confectioners' festive treats, such as sugarplums,
dated back to at least Tudor times.
And some Georgian Christmas traditions
had even more ancient roots.
In pre-Christian Britain, winter solstice, or Yuletide,
had long been celebrated by pagans.
The shortest days of the year were marked by feasting and drinking.
Evergreen plants were revered as a sign of life during the dark
winter months, and fire rituals banished the darkness,
welcoming the light of days to come.
In an echo of these earlier times, Georgians decorated their shops
and houses with holly, mistletoe and ivy.
And the largest log they could find was dragged into the house on
Christmas Eve and burnt throughout the 12 days of Christmas.
Known as the Yule log,
it brought warmth and light to the celebrations,
but it was also believed to ward off evil and usher in prosperity
for the year to come.
An echo of the pre-Christian Yuletide
also found its way into the Georgian kitchen.
Oh, It smells so good. It smells really lovely, actually.
It smells like gin. It smells really strongly of gin.
Angelica has been used as a medicinal plant since ancient times,
and today it can be bought as bright green diamonds for cake decorations.
They taste quite sweet.
That first bite.
Then not very nice.
Boiled and then coated in sugar,
candied Angelica was a popular item on Christmas shopping bills.
It will come in useful to our confectioners
when they decorate their Twelfth Cakes.
That's gorgeous.
Ta-da! Look at the size of this... Look at that. Oh!
VOICEOVER: Confectioners would often order rich fruitcakes from a baker's
rather than making their own.
The ideal shape for a Georgian Twelfth Cake was domed,
and so our sweet makers are building them up and covering them
with almond paste - an early version of marzipan.
What are you doing? Hm?
Are you eating it? No.
Good.
It is delicious, though.
Beautiful.
That's it. I can't wait to get them decorated up.
So now we just need to leave them to dry. Yeah.
VOICEOVER: Before the cakes can be decorated,
the almond paste needs to dry out for at least a day.
# Silent night
# Holy night
# All is calm... #
Christmas Day itself was a brief respite
for tradesmen like confectioners.
Shops would be closed,
and it was customary for workers to have a day of rest and worship.
# Mother and Child
# Holy infant so tender and mild
# Sleep... #
It wasn't until 1871 that Boxing Day
was made an official public holiday, too.
So on the 26th of December,
it's straight back to work for our confectioners.
Paul and Cynthia are making a start on the icing for the Twelfth Cake
by mixing egg whites with icing sugar.
I'm glad we're doing royal icing because when I was a kid, when I was
much younger, it was always royal icing on the Christmas cake.
Yeah. Really, really hard, you could barely get through it.
Yeah. And then everything went to fondant.
Yeah. But I love royal icing for Christmas because you can spike it.
Yeah. Snowy spikes. And it's so easy to do.
Yeah. It is. Then everyone had their way of eating it.
Some people didn't want cake and just wanted icing,
and some peeled their marzipan off and just had the icing.
And then you swap the bits you like. Of course.
I bet the Georgians did the same thing. Exactly.
In the middle? Yeah, on the... Say when. How much? Keep going.
Loads and loads and loads.
Oh, now it's Christmas.
It looks beautiful. Well, you're not going to get it glass-smooth.
No. So do you want to do, like, a swirl or something?
Yeah, I don't mind seeing palette-knife marks on it, no.
What do you feel like? What is your creative mind telling you?
My creative mind is telling me...
..that I really want a piping bag.
They're not invented yet. Yeah. Use your fingers. No.
Ooh. Can you come and do some ceilings at our house?
LAUGHTER
Artex. Artex, yeah!
To appeal to their wealthy customers,
confectioners would mimic the latest decorative fashions of the day
on their Twelfth Cakes.
And in the late 18th century, Wedgwood-coloured Jasperware
with its white reliefs were all the rage.
Diana and Andy are hoping to replicate the effect
with sugar paste.
Yay!
That's more like it.
Wedgwood was like sage green, so we'll see...
We'll add the spinach powder.
We haven't got any blue, though, have we? We haven't.
Artificial food dyes hadn't yet been invented,
so colour had been made from natural sources like spinach and turmeric.
Oh, beautiful.
With all the time that went into creating spectacular Twelfth Cakes,
they could be very lucrative.
Some were sold at one guinea -
about a third of a domestic servant's annual income.
I could stand here and watch her all day. I know.
But even for those at the bottom of the ladder,
there was something to look forward to on December 26th.
Wow. Hey.
Look at this hive of industry. This is beautiful.
Thank you. It's good, isn't it?
Anyone have any familiarity with this object?
A money box? A money box?
Looks like a money box, doesn't it?
What this is is a Christmas box.
Well, a replica of what a Georgian Christmas box
might have looked like.
Poorly paid workers, such as apprentices and delivery boys,
would appeal to the charity of local tradespeople,
asking for a few pennies as a Christmas tip for their money boxes.
They were so central, they were kind of an important tradition that
we get the name Boxing Day, which is the day that follows Christmas...
Oh! ..from this very thing.
And I thought that was to do with opening boxes and presents
and things like that. I think a lot of people think that.
Was that then opened on Boxing...?
So the person could have it on Boxing Day?
It was indeed. And would you like to see how that was done?
Yeah! OK. Gather round. Uh-oh. OK.
Oh, you're not, really? No.
That's quite precious - they've made it. Let's keep it real.
Oh, my goodness!
A Christmas box could be very lucrative.
An account from 1735 tells of an apprentice who collected
£3 in his box - more than many working people
could earn in an entire year.
There we go.
They're still warm.
After 20 layers of sugar,
the sugarplums just need a final coat of colour.
Cochineal red and saffron yellow.
That's fine. I think they look lovely. Right. Fabulous.
Destined for crystal bowls in the shop window,
our sweet-makers have reserved
enough to decorate their grandest Twelfth Cake.
Gosh, that looks great.
Almonds have transformed it.
Great. Fantastic. Well, I think they look amazing.
I think that looks amazing.
I think they require a confectioners' high five. That one?
Well done. Well done, guys. Well done.
Lovely jubbly. Right, chuck me those almonds, I'll get them out the way.
Packed up ready for t'shop. For t'shop.
Long before the Regent Street lights or visiting Santa's grotto
in a department store became a Christmas appointment,
going to see the Twelfth Cakes in the confectioner's shop was
a highlight of the Georgian festive season.
200 years later, the magic of a Christmas shop window
still delights us.
Beautiful. Stunning. That's eye-catching, isn't it?
I mean, it is absolutely authentic, isn't it? Wonderful.
The sort of thing you take the children down to come and see.
Yeah. Just going to have a look at the cake.
Yeah. Great. Very good. Very happy. Yeah, it's great.
Twelfth Cakes were destined for Twelfth Night parties -
a night when the social norms of Georgian society turned upside down.
The lowliest partygoer could find themselves playing King or Queen
for the night, and everyone feasted and drank till the early hours.
Our confectioners are rewarding themselves
for all their hard work with their own celebration.
Happy Twelfth Night.
Hello. Happy Twelfth Night.
I don't think that Christmas is Christmas without alcohol,
and the Georgians would have agreed.
And especially if you're throwing a party, as you are, on Twelfth Night,
you cannot just sit with empty cups in front of you.
I present to you wine chocolate.
Ooh! What?! It is an excellent use for leftover port.
Oh! Don't mind if I do.
Delicious. Smells amazing. Beautiful.
Like most of the rich delicacies in their shop window,
this hot chocolate is not for children.
It's wine chocolate - port mixed with melted chocolate and sugar.
Cheers. Happy Twelfth Night. Happy Twelfth Night.
Indeed.
Oh, Lord. That is yum.
Wow, that is so intense, isn't it?
Boozy, strong, delicious,
and would make a party really go with a bang, wouldn't it?
I like the Georgians.
I've not seen you look this happy...
LAUGHTER
It's great.
After the drinking came the party games.
So, this game is a game called Snapdragon.
I have just poured slightly heated brandy into this bowl of currants,
and the idea is that everybody has to reach into the flame
and pluck out a currant.
And the person with the most currants is going to win the game.
That's brilliant. Just before I set the brandy on fire,
if you do decide to play this at home,
now that you are all inspired to be like Georgians this Christmas,
just make sure that you've got some water on stand-by
and maybe a flame-retardant tablecloth?
LAUGHTER
I'm not saying it's going to be explosive, but...!
Like the hot chocolate,
this game is also definitely not meant for children.
Oh, one at a time?
Take as many as possible.
Ooh! LAUGHTER
That is why it's one at a time!
LAUGHTER
Our confectioners are entering the Victorian age,
and the way we celebrate Christmas has changed again.
Wow. There's a Christmas tree.
If you try to recreate a traditional Christmas now,
this is what you are after, isn't it?
You know, dried oranges and little biscuits hanging on ribbons.
And some candles.
I was think that when we consider Christmas today,
what we're really envisaging is the Victorian Christmas.
The tree decorated up and a fire crackling in the corner,
stockings hanging around it,
perhaps some children all ruddy-cheeked and glowing.
The cosy domestic focus of Victorian Christmas was inspired
by the Queen herself.
In 1848, the illustrated London News
published a drawing of the young Queen
with her husband Prince Albert and their children celebrating around a
decorated Christmas tree -
a tradition popular in Albert's home country, Germany.
Soon, all over Britain,
families were decorating a tree on Christmas Eve,
with children at the very heart of this new Victorian ritual.
They didn't invent a lot of the traditions that we see as part of
Christmas today, so things like the tree and Father Christmas and carols
all existed before the Victorian era.
But what they did do is they took traditions really from across Europe
and they sort of tweaked them,
made them into what we know today as opposed to the previous incarnation
of them. And one of the most interesting things, therefore,
from your perspective, is that while the Victorians may have invented
Christmas, it was Victorian confectioners
that really drove it forward
and who invented many of the traditions
that today we couldn't imagine having Christmas without.
There was no audience more receptive to the confectioner's innovations
than children.
During Victoria's reign, the price of sugar dropped by over 50%...
..which meant festive treats could now be made at pocket-money prices.
You are going to be stocking a small market stall for the Christmas fair.
Awesome.
Lots and lots of children will be coming to your stall
and they will be buying something which may well become
a family tradition for them.
OK. A Victorian Christmas.
Victorian Christmas. I'm excited already,
but I'm already feeling under pressure.
So, cheap jelly goods.
That says it all, doesn't it? Doesn't sound great, does it? No.
What's the recipe? It says here, this is a cheap line.
There's not much body in them,
but they sell at a price and give satisfaction.
Well... Profit. Absolutely.
Our confectioners will be making sweets to appeal to children
at eight for a penny.
To make any profit, the jellies will have to be mass produced,
and so they'll be made in starch trays...
We've got to get this really flat.
Really flat. Really even.
..a technique introduced by the Victorians.
We should be able to press these in one by one.
And lift.
They look beautiful.
The starch dehydrates the sugar, forming a crust around the jelly.
Great. One set of pigs.
Intricate moulds allowed Victorian confectioners to create novel,
child-friendly shapes.
Christmas favourites included sugar mice and the rather less familiar
jelly pigs.
The detail is fantastic.
They've got little ears. They do, and a little wiggly tail.
Wow. So you have to deal with them when it's liquid.
Andy and Diana are mixing sugar,
glucose and gelatine with water to make the cheap jellies.
The product might be basic, but to add child appeal,
they've got a few tricks up their sleeve.
Dig in. Now we need colour, flavour. We will put the acid in last.
They're using a new invention to colour the jelly -
artificial dyes.
It's coming. A bit more.
In 1856, the first edible synthetic dye was discovered.
Chemist Sir William Henry Perkin was working on a treatment for malaria
and found a by-product from the experiment
could produce a deep purple colour - mauveine.
Did it come out of the spoon? Yeah.
Other colours soon followed.
Paul and Cynthia are also using dyes to colour their sugar mice.
It's quite nice to work with pre-prepped colours,
and also comes on so much more evenly.
I feel like that needs to be darker to attract children.
Definitely. It's a very grown-up colour, that.
It is very grown-up. Oops!
Sugar mice could be made with a cold fondant of icing sugar
and egg white, or a hot fondant made by heating sugar, glucose and water.
Both were a popular Christmas treat.
I know that they're very English things - sugar mice.
Yeah? Yeah. I've never actually tried one.
You've never...
Sorry. Aw! Your first sugar mouse will be today.
It will be - and it'll be one I made myself. Brilliant.
Orange oil. Yeah.
Is that the jelly nearly ready, Andy? Yep. Fantastic.
Oh, it smells incredible. It smells like childhood orange.
Look at that! Good technique.
This is actually very quick.
We'll be able to make hundreds and hundreds of jellies superfast.
While Paul fills his starch moulds,
Andy is using plaster versions to shape his hot-fondant sugar mice.
The cold fondant versions also use hard moulds,
which can be used again and again - in theory.
These mice are starting to squeak.
Eek, eek.
There you go.
Ah, that's brilliant.
VOICEOVER: It's taken only two hours to make over a hundred
jelly pigs and an infestation of sugar mice.
I'll see your jellies and I'll raise you a couple of fondant sugar mice.
Oh, lovely!
Powdery. Wow! Thank you.
The definition's really nice.
Thank you. Can I eat the string? No. You did them green, though.
You've got icing all round your mouth, it's brilliant.
Sugar mice were a vital ingredient in another Christmas custom
popularised by Victorians - the Christmas stocking.
For centuries, European children
have received presents from Saint Nicholas in the days running up to
his saint's day, the 6th of December.
The hanging of stockings to be filled
with these gifts was inspired by a traditional tale.
According to the story, Saint Nicholas overheard a poor widower
lamenting the fact he had no dowry for his daughters.
As an act of charity, Saint Nicolas,
under cover of darkness, crept into the widower's home
and filled his daughter's stockings - that hung just above
the fireplace to dry - full of gold coins.
The Victorians embraced Saint Nicholas
and his stockings as a Christmas Eve tradition.
But it was an American illustrator, Thomas Nast,
who, in the 1880s, created the Father Christmas we recognise today.
Nast was inspired by the famous poem, A Visit From Saint Nicholas.
'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there
The children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.
It was an irresistible image.
The child's Christmas stocking stuffed with treats
was here to stay.
They do look nice when they're brushed off. They do, yeah.
And no stocking would be complete
without a handful of the confectioner's wares.
We really have got this down to a fine art, haven't we?
It's quick. You can really see how this starts to make sense.
At the beginning, I couldn't understand.
I thought, "How can they possibly sell it so cheap?"
But, actually, if you're making it this quickly...
If we had more of these, a full table full,
then we'd complete it in one hit.
Cheap as they were,
there are still many who could only dream of such sugary delights.
Those in the direst need depended on charity, particularly at Christmas.
And giving to workhouses and orphanages became
a Victorian Christmas tradition in itself.
Charitable donations funded Christmas trees,
toys, and, above all, sweet treats.
One orphanage in Bristol even set up a temporary sweet shop
where each child was given a few pennies to spend.
Sweets had become a crucial part of Christmas celebrations.
But alongside their basic wares,
our confectioners will still need to draw the crowds to their Victorian
stall with a spectacular centrepiece.
Hello, hello. How are our sugar pigs going?
Ooh, cake.
More cakes. Bit plain, isn't it?
Well, it is at the moment. But let us bear in mind
that you still may have a few wealthier customers
whose palates you want to titivate.
One of the really traditional
British Christmas dishes was the stuffed boar's head.
Queen Victoria used to have a boar's head on her table,
her Christmas sideboard, every single year.
Hers was a real boar.
But for those looking for a more interesting twist,
for those interestingly entrepreneurial Victorians
looking for old customs to appropriate and make into new ones,
Queen Victoria's chef proposed a slightly different idea.
Your face is just getting better and better and better.
Is that going to become a boar's head?
Oh, yes. Oh, my God!
LAUGHTER
The recipe for a boar's head cake -
an exact imitation of a real boar's head -
comes from a book by Queen Victoria's chef, Francatelli.
In medieval Britain, only the nobility were allowed to hunt
wild boar, and the Christmas boar's head was presented
with much ceremony.
Now it was yet another ancient Christmas tradition
that could be given a sweet spin.
Our sweet-makers will have to use all their talents to recreate
this Christmas spectacle.
What are you starting with, Andy?
I'm going to make you some jelly first. For the base? Uh-huh.
While Cynthia is using her sculpting skills to carve the cake...
..Diana's chef training is put to use
to cook up a chocolate glaze which will cover the head.
Paul, do you want to come and look at this glaze?
As long as it reaches coating consistency...
Pop a little bit on there.
..we're going to be all right, aren't we?
It's a beautiful colour. That's it. It's a good consistency, look.
Even hot.
All the trimmings have to be made from scratch.
Look at that! Gorgeous orange jelly, it smells amazing.
Shall we have green or blue eyes, everyone?
One of each. One of each. One of each?
Shall we try them?
That is too scary. That's too scary, isn't it?
I thought it was Christmas, not Halloween.
They're including some Christmas staples...
I'm just doing some candied orange peels
which we can use for decoration.
..and marzipan fruits.
That's it. Perfect. That's it. Perfect. Beautiful.
Look at the colour!
Oh, my goodness. It's beautiful.
Any bubbles popped? I have to remind myself this is not a real boar.
It looks like a real, glazed, savoury boar's head now.
That's a good compromise. Yeah.
Quite a lot of piping work on them, isn't there?
Sure is.
VOICEOVER: Much to Cynthia's relief, by the middle of the 19th century,
piping bags had been introduced to Britain.
I don't like the font. Ooh!
The finishing touch is to place the hatelet skewers.
These ornate silver spears were traditionally used in meat,
and held savoury delicacies like truffles and cockscombs.
Now they hold sweet equivalents.
That looks fantastic, doesn't it?
That looks brilliant. Ooh, this is the special moment, isn't it?
It is a moment, isn't it?
I'm a bit emotional about this.
A mere four hours from boring sponge to spectacular boar.
Look at that!
That's incredible.
That's the most bonkers thing we've ever made.
I never question what we can do but I didn't expect it to be that good.
Oh, my God!
Hi. He's handsome, isn't he?
It's unbelievable.
It's so realistic.
Is that what you expected? No, no, not at all.
It is so much better than anything I could have thought.
Aw! You're just... We're pleased you love it.
We love it.
Can you imagine having this on your Christmas table?
ALL TALK AT ONCE
I mean... I keep looking at it
and seeing more and more details, as well.
The candied orange peel and the little mushrooms
and the holly in the ears. These are nougatine.
Oh, my goodness! This is just so perfect.
I want to give you all a huge hug. Group hug!
Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas to you.
# Wassail, wassail, all over the town
# Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown
# Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
# With a wassailing bowl we'll drink to thee... #
At the Christmas fair,
the boar's head has pride of place on the confectioners' stall.
Their baskets are piled high with brightly coloured sweets,
aimed at Christmas's new consumers...
..the children.
Hello. How are you?
I have pink sugar mice, I have white sugar mice.
Victorian childhood favourites
have become enduring Christmas traditions.
And sugar mice...
Eight for a penny. There we go.
Thank you very much. And there you are.
Enjoy. Happy Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Looking at the faces of the children looking into the baskets,
you can tell they were shaking with excitement.
They don't know which one to take. It's brilliant. Perfect.
Confectionery makes Christmas. It does. Sweet memories.
The magical child-centred Victorian Christmas,
which confectioners helped to dream up
with its tree hung with sweets and
stockings stuffed with treats is still with us today.
Everything a penny.
Our sweet-makers are entering a new era.
And they're going to have to work harder than ever.
Confectionery is now big business
and there's fierce competition for the Christmas market.
Welcome to the 1920s Christmas.
In your workshop now you have things such as electric light,
you've got lots of metalware.
You've got new and exciting moulds and ingredients.
In terms of confectionery and sweet-making,
the big story is that now it's a really huge industry,
so companies such as Rowntree's and Mackintosh's, Cadbury's and Terry's.
And one of the really important things
they're doing in terms of Christmas confectionery is they're producing
more and more chocolate.
For example, we have chocolate figurines.
CHEERING
Obviously, these are somewhat modern,
but this is where they come from.
We love a bit of foiling. One of the things I particularly wish you to be
inspired by is a very innovative product
which is being made by Terry's.
Terry's is very well-known for the chocolate orange,
but that's a little later - that's 1930s.
Because before the chocolate orange, there was...
..the chocolate apple.
No! No way!
Was it apple flavoured?
No, it was just plain chocolate.
Again, another reason the orange probably took off was because orange
flavouring is a lot easier to replicate than apple flavouring.
Also, orange has always had that association with sort of Christmas.
Yes, indeed.
Launched in 1926,
the chocolate apple was just one of a frenzy of new products trying to
capture the lucrative Christmas market.
Big firms were pouring money into
all sorts of new, shaped, flavoured and filled chocolates.
By the end of the period, Cadbury's alone
had 237 products on its price list.
Right, we'd better get cracking, then. Right, pans of water?
Yeah, you guys, bain maries, chopping chocolate.
Really small, please.
Small as you can. As small as we can.
All right.
Our sweet-makers are making their own versions
of some of the most popular Christmas chocolates of the day
to sell in their 1920s shop.
Small confectioners would buy
chocolate by the slab from wholesalers
and melt it down to create their own products.
OK, they're quite noisy now, aren't they?
Can we have...
Can we have less...
You have bits of paper in your chocolate fondant.
Oh! Right, OK.
Professional chocolatiers Diana and Paul are in their element.
This needs to melt for quite a while to get it really, really smooth.
Don't let the water boil, though, Andy, please.
Don't let it boil. Don't let it boil. Don't let it boil -
it will bake the chocolate, it'll go grainy and solid. OK.
What are you making?
So, we've got sugar, water, a bit of glucose into a syrup.
Pour it on to egg whites while whisking.
Don't look at me like that. It's only two of your eggs.
And it will volumise and create a cooked Italian meringue.
We'll pipe that into each chocolate.
Like Walnut Whip. Exactly like Walnut Whip.
The Walnut Whip, or whipped cream walnut
was first developed by a firm called Duncan's in 1910.
In 1927, Rowntree's bought the firm and added an extra walnut.
Using Paul's mixture,
Diana and Andy are making a handmade version of this Christmas classic.
You never eat a Walnut Whip the rest of the year but at Christmas time,
it's like, "Where's me Walnut Whips?"
Did you ever get mini selection packs
with all the different stuff in?
Yeah. My nanna used to get those for me.
My nanna who lived up in Grimsby.
Which bit did you save until the last?
Which was your favourite? It used to be the Mars Bar one.
Oh, no. I used to have a Mars. The finger of fudge.
In fact, I used to go into my sister's selection pack and pinch
her finger of fudge and put something in it I didn't like. Oh!
In the early '20s, Rowntree's launched
their first Christmas selection box,
containing all sorts of treats
including sugared almonds and Walnut Whips.
Such was their popularity that from 1929 to 1935,
Rowntree's manufacture of fancy boxes increased twentyfold.
Found some walnuts.
CRACKING
I say. Did you just crack that with your hands?
CRACKING Whoa! Wow!
The Wigan nut-squasher.
Sounds like a wrestler!
Novelty was key to capturing the valuable festive market,
and confectioners drew on old Christmas traditions
to create new ones.
Where once a child might receive a coin in their stocking,
now they could have chocolate money.
Even ancient pagan customs were fair game for a sweet makeover.
Yuletide logs.
Look at this! I know.
It's clever. It's a tree stump.
Stump, yeah.
First sold in fashionable Parisian patisseries in the 19th century,
by the 1920s the bouche de Noel was Anglicised,
becoming the Yule log that we still know today.
They're really festive.
Thank you. It's made everything feel more Christmassy.
Ingredients associated with Christmas
were also given a new lease of life.
Pop an almond in each.
An almond? Pop an almond in, to give it crunch and flavour.
Ah, almond and pineapple.
Where 200 years ago, nuts turned into sugar plums,
now they were encased in chocolate.
This is where it gets really quick, once you've made the shell,
so your productivity goes up.
By the end of the 1920s,
confectioners had figured out how to flavour chocolate itself...
..so the traditional Christmas orange
could now be transformed into a sweet treat.
Launched in 1932, and still popular today,
it's said that at the height of their popularity
one in ten Christmas stockings had a Terry's Chocolate Orange in it.
Our sweet-makers are attempting an exotic alternative -
the chocolate pineapple.
Because, look, it's got... It's got gaps in it.
It does, but that's fine.
The chocolate is going to be too thick to go through it. Ah, I see.
Shall we flavour our chocolate first? Yes, please.
Stand that up. So pineapple, little bit of pineapple oil.
How much? Say when.
When. No, a bit more.
There we go. Any flavour has to be oil-based.
Yes.
OK. So it takes a lot of chocolate.
Mm-hm.
Right to the top.
Which is the bottom.
So, now, we're going to tip it up completely,
tip all the excess chocolate out.
And give it a little shake as you go. OK.
In the 1920s, chocolate production increased at an astonishing rate.
Chuck them in upside down.
Take your fork. Push on the leading edge and then tap it to the surface.
Cadbury's alone tripled their chocolate sales
from the early 1920s to the mid 1930s.
And at Christmas, all the big confectionery firms
competed to turn out as many attention-grabbing products
as possible.
Oh! Look! How cool is that?
Got a little raspberry, strawberries.
It's like Christmas!
I know, so clever! How beautiful is that? They look great.
They look fantastic.
Right, pineapple time. Drum roll.
OK, let's see if we can...
..prise off the first two. Ready?
Ooh. Ooh! Ooh!
Give it a tap. Ooh, that was good.
Ooh! Ah.
Got...
Ohh!
Ah. Oh. No!
That's gone a bit... Do you know what? We can repair everything.
Ooh, by 'eck!
I've never known a mould to be this...
..this bonded together.
Well... Ohh!
That's why. It's not going to be the new chocolate orange, then, is it?
It's not going to be the new chocolate orange, unfortunately.
It just needs a bit more product development.
Oh! Can you please peel off a nice big bit of foil, Cynthia?
Yes, that, that we can do.
What a shame.
We'll have a green top, look.
Beautiful, isn't it? Look. It is.
Andy.
I still think it looks like a hand grenade.
It's a triumph of packaging over product.
What do you think Christmas Santas are?!
LAUGHTER
In a crowded marketplace, to catch the eye of the Christmas shopper,
a product had to really stand out.
Even beautifully shaped chocolates were still brown,
so they needed some sparkle.
Wrapped in shiny foil and packaged in festive boxes,
they were transformed into Christmas magic.
And in 1936, Macintosh launched a new chocolate assortment
which did all of this with absolute brilliance.
Lovely.
Hello. Hello.
So, even though you're hard at work
and this looks absolutely delightful,
and incredibly festive, you have some stiff competition.
Oh. You might recognise...
Macintosh's, it was Macintosh's. It was, yeah.
And how big is that tin? I know. That's a lot of chocolates.
A lot of effort has gone into the tin, has gone into the chocolates,
so this is really the age...
Do you know what I miss?
This. I know. It's the lining paper.
And doing this as kids.
It was just the fun, like a ritual.
Would you like one? Oh, my favourite.
The green triangle.
This is eating my childhood memories.
This is the original Quality Street assortment,
so lots of them are the same but just these early drawings
I think are...so lovely. Names, Harrogate toffee.
I know. Almond toffee, vanilla toffee.
But there's still the ones we know today - toffee penny, toffee finger.
Now, I did wonder, because I always said that the purple one
that has the hazelnut in used to be Brazil nut,
because it was in a Brazil nut shape, the chocolate.
And it does say there...
..chocolate creme toffee Brazils.
Brazils. So that has changed.
Yes. So Lord Harold Macintosh had his eight-point plan.
Want to have a little look? So, plan for Quality Street,
shape and design of the tin, number one.
Now, that's really telling, isn't it?
Because normally we'd say product first
and then think about how you're
going to package it, but this was all about the packaging.
All those colours and the glistening
and the light bouncing off them and the rustle. The sound.
The noise. It really does say Christmas.
In a stroke of marketing genius,
Macintosh packaged Quality Street with a nostalgic Victorian image...
..selling customers the idea of a happy Christmas
in a tin of chocolates.
Our sweet-makers have taken their chocolate pineapple,
Walnut Whips and Yule logs to be displayed in their sweet shop.
I'm going to pop the pineapple right in the middle there.
With mass production and clever marketing, confectioners had managed
to inextricably link sweets and chocolates to the festive season.
Beautiful. How's it looking?
Looks fantastic.
Are you proud of your handiwork?
We are!
Very impressive. So I must say, you guys are looking fantastic,
given that you've been working for over 200 years.
Have you enjoyed it? Loved it! Absolutely!
Is there anything you'd like to bring back that from now on you're
going to make part of your own Christmas traditions at home?
Snapdragons. Snapdragons.
Best game ever!
Twelfth Cakes. I loved the Twelfth Cakes, yes.
Twelfth Cakes, yeah, definitely.
Twelfth Cake. And the month's holiday.
LAUGHTER
In 1938, Mass Observation - a social survey of everyday life in Britain -
recorded that on Christmas Eve
some sweet shops stayed open until midnight
so their customers could shop until the very last minute.
Yes, thank you very much.
Anything else for you?
I like the way that Christmas has changed because in Georgian times
it was very much aimed at adults
and it's become much more child-friendly.
Now, you know, I suppose it's a time for everyone.
It's lovely.
From the spectacle of the shop window,
to treats for stockings, to today's bestsellers - for two centuries,
confectioners have been shaping the way we celebrate Christmas.
Have a lovely Christmas, thank you very much. All the best!
I've been super surprised about how confectioners have
moulded traditions, created traditions.
I would not be doing my job today without that,
and I wouldn't be generating other
people's traditions by making my take
on festive chocolates.
And that one's... That's a penny, please,
for the Yule log. Thank you very much.
To this day, it's the arrival of festive sweet treats
in the shops that lets us know that Christmas is coming.
How influential they were in shaping the things that we still do now,
honing their craft through the ages.
I feel really privileged, you know, to not only do what I do now,
but also to have discovered this.
Beautiful. That is 10p,
it's our most expensive item, but it is a one-off.
It doesn't surprise me that confectioners of the past shaped
Christmas, because I think that's what we do.
We create a little bit of
sweet magic and we make it accessible to everybody.
Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas. Careful in that snow.
Thank you. Bye!
CHEERING
Christmas is a time of celebrations.
ALL: Merry Christmas!
And as we tuck into our festive sweet treats,
let's raise a glass to confectioners everywhere, past and present.