A Georgian Treat The Sweet Makers

Sweets - they're our guilty pleasure.

Today, British confectionery is a £6 billion industry.

But where did it all begin?

We've asked four modern confectioners to go back in time,

to work their way through three eras that revolutionised their trade.

From the birth of their profession four centuries ago,

where they'll craft luxuries for Tudor aristocrats...

-Oh!

-It's cracking, Cyn. It's getting worse, look.

..to Georgian entrepreneurs, storming the high street

and tempting the fashionable middle classes.

-Look, mould. Chocolate?

-Jelly?

-Both?

And finally, they'll work on the production line of the 20th century

factory, making affordable goodies for the masses.

You're a cog in a wheel. You know, you're... I'm a chocolate dipper.

Our 21st century confectioners will be learning to make the sweet treats

of the past. They'll be using the ingredients,

recipes and equipment of the time.

It looks like a tapeworm. This is bum-clenching stuff.

They'll experience first-hand the triumphs...

CHEERING AND LAUGHTER

..and the trials of their profession.

-Oh, that's hot.

-Hot, hot, hot!

And they'll be creating sugary masterpieces,

which haven't been tasted for hundreds of years.

-Oh, my God.

-Mm.

-That is amazing.

But as well as making the treats of the past,

our confectioners will be exploring the bittersweet story of sugar,

an ingredient that transformed Britain, shaping our empire,

bankrolling our cities, igniting our slave trade...

The cruelty's just terrible.

..and changing the way we eat forever.

WHOOPING

They've already experienced life as Tudor servants

in a private house, working with an ingredient so precious,

it was kept under lock and key.

Now they've left their aristocratic masters behind

to set up shop, as sugar hits the Georgian high street.

It's 1770 and our confectioners, Cynthia, Paul, Andy and Diana,

are in Bath, one of Britain's wealthiest cities,

thanks to the money flooding in from the far corners of the empire.

This week, our team will be running a confectionery shop.

They're now businessmen and women and they'll be turning out sweet

delicacies and desserts to tempt the palettes

of the discerning Bath customers.

An explosion in supply and demand from across the globe

has made sugar the world's most important commodity.

Profits from this lucrative trade

have helped fuel a rapid expansion of Britain's cities...

Oh, look!

..and eager customers for the ambitious confectioner.

I mean, I think maybe the expectation on the confectioners

was higher, so I'm thinking we might be expected to produce

a lot more variety of things.

So, in that respect, it could be more challenging.

That looks lovely.

I expect that there's a little bit more refinement.

I mean, just from our outfits. You know,

it's gone from complete utility to, you know, a bit frivolous,

so I expect to see that reflected in food.

Unlike a modern sweet shop, Georgian confectioners were aimed at adults,

not children, and sold everything, from biscuits and bonbons,

to ice cream and jelly by the glass.

-Ooh!

-Look at those.

-Ooh, yum!

-It's like a little sweetie teashop.

-Gorgeous.

-Wow, look.

We have a counter. A lovely sugar loaf, yeah.

-Does it smell?

-It is, they've got chocolate in them.

Yeah? Nice.

-What are they like?

-Mm. Mm...

-Sugary?

-Taste of childhood.

Part patisserie, part cafe,

the shops were popular meeting places

for their fashionable customers.

That smells of pineapple.

Mind me skirt.

Georgian confectioners offered a bespoke catering service

for wealthy clients,

so over the next four days, our team will not only stock their shop,

but also prepare a decadent dessert course,

using original recipes from 1770 to 1833.

Time to explore.

-Oh, my God.

-We have moulds, look.

-Ooh, there's another room.

-Fantastic.

-How beautiful's that?

That's going to be amazing.

This is too exciting. Everything's elaborate and delicate.

-Andy.

-What?

-Twigs.

-The whisk. The twigs are back.

-Mould. Chocolate?

-Jelly?

-Both?

VOICEOVER: I'm Dr Annie Gray, a food historian,

and together with social historian Emma Dabiri,

I'll be helping our modern confectioners understand the world

that they've entered.

-Hello.

-Hi, everybody.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hello, and welcome to the Georgian period.

Britain's overseas territories are rapidly expanding.

The arts are absolutely flourishing

and there's a huge thirst for creativity and innovation.

No more so than in the world of confectionery.

-Hooray.

-Brilliant.

This is my favourite era in British history, full stop.

This is where you start to see the birth of British cuisine

for the first time, but vying with high-end French cuisine.

You are magicians, you are not just cooks.

-Well, we know that...

-We do, yeah.

-SHE LAUGHS

Your clientele is also changing.

Sugar is still a luxury product, but more people have access to it.

There's a new and emerging middle class,

who are making their way through trade and industry.

In terms of getting to work now,

your first task will be to make ice cream. GASPS

Now, you've got this kitchen, which is your cold kitchen.

Next door, you've got a hot kitchen for making the basic preparations.

However, there's no way you even can consider making ice cream

-without one fundamental ingredient - ice.

-Ice.

Without the modern convenience of a freezer, the cost of obtaining

and storing ice made ice cream an expensive luxury.

-Ooh, hello.

-Hi!

-I've got a little treat for you guys.

-Wow, what's this?

-Do you want to have a little peek inside?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, sure.

-Oh, wow!

-That's a big block of ice.

-So, along with these tortuous-looking implements...

-OK.

-..and some gloves...

-Ladies?

..this is what you will be working with.

-Excellent.

-Pass them round.

-Oh, wow.

-There you go.

Transported from the lochs of Scotland,

or as far away as America,

huge slabs of ice were stored in heavily-insulated ice houses,

which sometimes extended underground.

Wrapped in straw,

ice could be stored for several months before being delivered

by horse and cart to customers like our confectioners.

OK.

Up we go. How small do we need to take it, do you think?

-What are we going to do with it?

-We've got to pack it around buckets

and things, haven't we?

-EMMA:

-To freeze their ice cream,

the confectioners will need to surround their moulds

and containers with chipped ice.

Let's have a go.

-That's fun.

-What do you reckon? One hit?

-One hit, go on. One hit wonder.

-One hit wonder.

-No.

-Ah, show off.

-Oh!

-Oh, nice.

-Oh, that looks lovely.

LAUGHTER

Ooh, it's nice, isn't it?

-Very nice.

-LAUGHTER

Goodness me, no wonder you lot are not deemed useful to society.

-Oh, sorry.

-Look at the floor!

-I know.

-Did it not occur to you to put it in a sack

and hit it in a sack so that you didn't lose any?

Er, I think someone said that, didn't they?

Here is this week's culinary bible.

-Yay!

-Ooh!

-And you have in here your...

way to ice all sorts of liquid compositions.

You're going to be making cream ices,

so what we would today call ice cream, and also water ices,

today what we'd call sorbet.

And you are going to be making some of my favourite flavours.

-Raspberry ripple!

-No.

-Mint choc chip?

-Chocolate?

No, cheese.

-Really?

-Cheese?!

-No!

-Cream cheesy?

-Chocolate and cheese.

-You will be making Parmesan cream ice...

-Oh.

..chocolate water ice and also a plain lemon water ice,

-which you can colour and use to mould.

-Oh, lovely.

You are going to be making the latest, greatest craze.

Imagine if you've never tasted ice cream before,

something cold, what it must've been like,

and this is the new thing that's sweeping not just the elite,

who had it for about 100 years,

but sweeping through the middle classes like a storm.

They're following recipes from a 1790 book,

The Complete Confectioner, by Frederick Nutt.

While Cynthia and Andy continue to break up the frozen block,

21st century chocolatiers Paul and Diana

are making a start on the ices.

I'm lucky. I've got my twig whisk.

-Ooh!

-Which, erm...

actually feels much sturdier than the Tudor whisk.

I was going to say, the other one was a bit flimsy.

This is good, actually.

So this is like a traditional ice cream we'd make now, isn't it?

Eggs, cream, sugar,

-but Parmesan, which was seen to be modern.

-Yeah.

Absolutely, and in fact, what strikes me is both of these recipes

are considered to be sort of modern,

you know, amazing new tweaks on things, aren't they?

I mean, chocolate sorbet,

-you're seeing it in all of the top restaurants now.

-Dairy free...

Exactly. And the Parmesan ice cream, you know, very Heston, isn't it?

-Very.

-Like you say, it's been done before, and then some.

What was new to the Georgian period was a plentiful supply of sugar.

Thanks to the booming plantations of the Caribbean,

between 1700 and 1800,

sugar imports to Britain increased tenfold...

So, I need a pint of water into here.

..and average annual consumption rose from the equivalent of three

modern bags of sugar to nearly 11 bags per head.

-Oh.

-Mm.

-It's very intense.

This abundance meant that every social class

could now have sugar in their tea - a previously unattainable luxury -

while those that could afford it flocked to high-end confectioners.

The most fashionable shop of the day

was Domenico Negri's Pot and Pineapple

in London's Berkeley Square.

I have here a bill from Negri's shop.

There are all sorts of things on it, from apricots,

which he calls "apricocks",

through to nonpareil, which are essentially comfits,

and along with all of these things, fruit, cakes, there are also ices.

There are plain ices.

Two shillings each.

And cedrati ices, six shillings for four of them.

That's an enormous amount of money.

The plain ice at two shillings

would've been just under most people's working daily wage.

We've got some saffron, we've got some spinach,

so we can make some chlorophyll.

I'll mash up a few cochineals.

Look at that. Beautifully red already.

-I love that.

-It's like I've just hit somebody over the head, isn't it?

-Oh!

-I know.

Our confectioners are using many of the same natural dyes and flavours

that they did in the Tudor kitchen,

as synthetic versions are yet to be invented.

Oh, there's nothing nicer than a freshly grated lemon.

I like the word "rasp" rather than "grate".

-Rrrasp!

-Rasp my lemon.

-You have to roll your tongue when you say it,

-though.

-I can't.

-Rrrasp.

-I don't have a rolly tongue.

-Oh. Can you growl?

Rrr!

-No.

-LAUGHTER

Our confectioners are catering for a whole new type of customer.

As Britain's cities grew, so too did the urban class of professionals -

lawyers, doctors, merchants and high-end tradesmen.

And for these wealthy and aspiring Georgians,

spending a season in Bath

was an essential part of the social calendar.

Up here on the tower of Bath's famous abbey,

I have a bird's-eye view of the city.

Down there, we can glimpse the Roman bath,

where crowds flock then, as now, to take the spa water.

After that, it might be a ball in the assembly rooms,

a lecture in the Guildhall,

or a fabulous dinner at one of Bath's beautiful Crescent houses.

The demands of Bath's wealthy residents and visitors offered

a new opportunity for confectioners.

Previously tied to their aristocratic masters,

they could now open their own shop

and capitalise on this lucrative market.

This is a map of Georgian Bath's city centre

and we've marked up all of the confectionery shops

that would've been here.

There's 20 in total, which is quite a remarkable number.

Here on Milsom Street alone,

there were five, and the most famous of these

was Molland's, which was located at number 2.

Jane Austen immortalised Molland's in her novel Persuasion,

when she made her heroine, Miss Elliot,

take shelter in there from the rain.

Molland's has long since disappeared,

but one contemporary referred to it as a gourmet temple,

and another noted

that Bath's confectionery shops were as genteel as in London.

-I have here some trade cards from your competitors.

-OK.

-Er...

-You have, er...

-We have some?

You do. You can see you've got Mr Trinder.

-Now, he has opened a pop-up shop just for the season.

-Has he now?

So, very modern.

-Wow!

-And you can see that he serves "the nobility, gentry and others."

LAUGHTER

-Who is "others"?

-Well, those who are not the nobility and the gentry.

The middle classes.

You've got William Fortt, the successor to Mr J Tully,

he is a cook, pastry cook and confectioner on Milsom Street,

here in Bath, advertising soups, ices and made dishes,

so you don't need to worry about the soups and made dishes,

-but clearly...

-The ices.

-..the ices.

Bath is full of people like this and they are all competing for the same

business, so you've got to be a cut above them.

Ice cream was so lucrative that when Frederick Nutt announced he was

publishing a book of ice cream recipes,

desperate London confectioners

offered him the equivalent of £100,000 in today's money

not to reveal their trade secrets.

The confectioners' sorbet and ice cream mixes are ready to be frozen.

Andy's using a Georgian trick of adding salt to their crushed ice

to lower its temperature.

So, how much salt have you had to put in?

Two to three handfuls?

If you've got too much, it's going to melt really, really quickly.

Shall we put some of this in here?

-We're up to the stage...

-Can you give me a hand?

-OK.

So, colour these ones...

They're using a sorbetiere,

the Georgian equivalent of an ice cream maker,

which is surrounded by the crushed ice and salt mixture to freeze.

LAUGHTER

We've got a business to run. This ice cream needs making.

Quite right.

-How are you looking?

-It's...

-Is it going?

After just 20 minutes, ice crystals are starting to form.

-Ooh...

-Ooh, it is. It is, look. Can you see?

Just round the edge, at the top.

-Ours is going already.

-It's freezing, yeah.

-Oh, you want to come and look now.

-Oh, my gosh! It actually is.

Look. Is it freezing right at the bottom where the salt and ice is?

-Nothing seems to be happening at all.

-Right in the bottom?

-Yeah.

It is, there.

-Just the right amount of salt.

-It is. It is icing up.

Frozen solid.

The syrup must now be stirred regularly as it thickens.

You know the ice cream makers you buy now? You can put them

in the freezer, chill them, put your mix in and you just turn it.

-Yeah.

-The ones without a melter?

That is so slow compared to how quickly...

-Absolutely.

-We've gone backwards a bit.

-Up we come.

-HE STRAINS

Right.

I think we're ready to mould.

-I think so, too.

-But not before we've finished this off.

How's it going?

-Ooh...

-Really well.

-Lovely. Come and look, come and look.

It's exciting.

VOICEOVER: Just how cold have they made their sorbetiere?

-Now, a modern freezer is, what? Minus 18?

-Yeah.

-So...

-It should only be about minus three, shouldn't it?

Two, minus four...

-Blimey.

-..seven, minus nine.

-Minus ten.

-I'm amazed.

What did we say? Minus three, we thought...?

-Yeah.

-Minus 12.

-Minus 12?

-Wow!

-Just the right amount of salt, obviously.

-Awesome.

-Oh, don't break it up too much.

Ice cream and sorbets could be served straight into glasses,

but moulded ices were very popular.

Oops. I just put my pink spoon in there.

Pewter moulds came in all sorts of sizes and inventive shapes,

from tall bombes, to fruit and vegetables.

I think you feel the pressure, cos it's like, oh, my God,

we've to get these in the moulds and get them in the freezer before they...

-Start to thaw.

-Before they start to go, yeah.

Of course, there is no electric freezer,

but there is the Georgian equivalent,

known as an ice chest, or ice cave,

a metal-lined wooden box filled with yet more ice and salt.

It is slight mild panic and worry now, hoping that it works.

-It is, yeah. It is.

-You've got to be positive, it will work.

That was quite stressful, actually.

That would be nice, wouldn't it? The big oval one?

I don't know if we've got enough to cook from one of those.

Right, where are...? Toffee dip.

Which is the hot water?

Are you going to roll the edge, as well?

-Oh, yeah, it's loose.

-Is it?

-Yeah. The bottom is loose.

After three hours in the ice chest, it's the moment of truth.

-OK, so then...

-Take the top off.

-Yeah.

Ooh, we lost a little bit.

I don't think that's frozen enough.

-It's not, is it?

-It's oozing.

-It's a little bit soft.

It's not frozen enough, I don't think.

-That is so impressive.

-I'd pop that one straight back.

Shall we get another small one?

Let's get this little one out.

-Look at those!

-Oh, look!

-Oh, my goodness...

They work beautifully, don't they?

-ALL:

-Ooh...

-That's the...

-Ooh, it's coming out!

-It's coming!

-That's it.

-Wow!

Wow!

Do we get a try?

Beautiful ices will be included in their final dessert course

in three days' time, so they need to test the quality of the merchandise,

starting with the chocolate sorbet.

Oh, that's lush.

-Mmm!

-That's really, really nice.

-How's the chocolate?

-Mm!

The chocolate is amazing.

-Oh, it's very strong, isn't it?

-It's so clean.

-That's so refreshing.

-Mm.

-Mm.

-Shall we leave some for Annie?

-No.

-Not a...

-No.

What is this?

-Oh, wow.

-What is this?

I bring you glasses so that you can serve the ices like tasteful

-and genteel Georgians.

-We can.

-And you are eating it.

Oh, queen of cheese.

VOICEOVER: But will the rather more ambitious Parmesan ice cream be as delicious?

Those ice crystals are small, aren't they?

-That is so weird.

-Mm.

That is so lovely. At the end of a meal.

-It's like cheesecake.

-With a little bit of pear.

-Ooh.

-Or quince.

-All gone back in.

Yes, you definitely need something sweet and tart with it.

That is so good.

I am really, actually, bowled over by that.

-EMMA:

-Confectioners offering the very latest in exotic tastes

and flavours drew in a clientele with money to burn,

and nowhere more so than in Bath,

whose Georgian architecture is testament

to its rapid expansion during this period,

from small town to one of the country's wealthiest cities.

But much of the money that funded this growth

came from those who had profited handsomely from the trade

in both sugar and slaves.

Thousands of miles from Bath's elegant crescents,

Barbados might seem like a world away,

but it's all part of the same story - sugar.

Barbados had been growing sugar for export from the 1640s.

By the end of the 18th century,

they had transported almost half a million Africans here,

to provide labour for the British plantations.

By the 18th century,

sugar cane covered Britain's Caribbean colonies.

Both the plantations and the slave trade were now run

on an industrial scale...

..with one aim - to extract as much profit as possible

from the product they called white gold.

It's easy to imagine that it was only one or two fabulously wealthy

individuals and their henchmen that were involved in sugar

and slavery out here in the Caribbean.

However, this couldn't be further from the truth.

Slavery was deeply embedded throughout British society

during the 18th-century. In Bath alone,

there were over 100 individuals who owned slaves in the Caribbean.

But it wasn't just plantation owners getting rich.

The sugar trade was now a cornerstone of the British economy,

from dock workers, customs officers, shipbuilders,

bankers and insurance agents,

to the craftsmen exporting furniture and tapestries to the Caribbean -

all were profiting from the labour of slaves.

St Nicholas Abbey, with its lavish house,

was one of the largest sugar plantations on Barbados.

-Hiya.

-Good to see you.

Thanks.

Professor Pedro Welch is an expert on the lives of the slaves and their

plantation-owning masters.

Oh, how opulent!

So, looking around me, this furniture looks very familiar to me,

as very kind of typically English.

Absolutely. Some of the furniture,

in fact all of the furniture, would be imported from England.

I mean, what's the point of having all that wealth unless you can be

ostentatious with it? These were lords of all that they surveyed.

The plantation was at the apex of the society,

and the slaves were at the bottom.

Outside the big house, life was very different.

I don't know if you've ever seen our slave lists,

like this one that I have here, from this plantation.

So, these are the people that actually would've lived here,

-where we are?

-Absolutely.

The lists show the name and occupation of each slave.

It also includes their age and where they were born.

-If you look at this...

-Sorry,

I'm just glancing further down this and I'm seeing one, two,

-three-year-olds?

-Yes.

The planters have long since recognised the importance

of reproducing the slave population.

-Mm-hm?

-So they begin to offer incentives to women

for producing babies.

-Oh, wow.

-So, if you produce a slave,

you're given certain rewards,

you were given additional rations, or whatever.

And if you produced as many as, I think six or seven,

-then you were set free.

-Really?

-Yes.

But your freedom is then contingent

on you producing more children that you're condemning to slavery.

That is so perverse.

The system is diabolical.

You just hear kind of references to the slaves,

but they're often kind of, like, not humanised,

so to just see their names and their ages and their occupations,

and to know that they were in this space that we're sitting in now,

but in very, very different circumstances, it's just very...

almost overwhelming to me.

Well, I can imagine how you feel.

In my case, as an Afro-Barbadian,

I've managed to trace my ancestry back to an enslaved man.

-Oh...

-And an enslaved woman,

so what you feel when you see this is incredibly...

emotional.

It was a barbaric system,

but one heavily defended by the powerful sugar lobby.

They stoked white fears of murderous slave revolts

to justify the status quo,

and warned of a drastic increase in the price of sugar

should slavery be abolished.

As independent shopkeepers needing to make a profit,

most Georgian confectioners preferred not to dwell

on the morality of their sugar source.

Instead, they focused on developing tempting new products

to draw in customers.

-Distant relative.

-It's me, isn't it?

-With no beard.

-I love the hair.

The Italian confectioner William Jarrin

was an invaluable guide

for those wishing to add variety to their range of goods.

Right, let's see what he was doing, then.

-What have we got?

-This page here is degrees of boiling the sugar.

With no thermometer.

He's describing one, two, three, four, five, six,

seven stages. Seven stages of boil.

"Thread, the pearl, the blow, the feather,

"the crack." And the last one is caramel.

By the end of the 18th-century,

around 95% of shopkeepers could read.

Books like Jarrin's not only introduced new recipes,

but encouraged confectioners to experiment.

Going to put this on the heat.

It's an approach that appeals to Andy, who trained as a chemist.

Having looked at Jarrin's book over a nice cup of tea, erm,

it's very interesting to find out how he stands,

for chemistry and analytical reasoning behind what they're doing.

He's trying out the different stages of sugar boiling,

which enabled confectioners to make a variety of sweets.

There were no sugar thermometers, so each stage must be judged by eye,

including the great blow.

HE LAUGHS

If the confectioner can blow small bubbles,

the syrup is ready to make soft sweets, like fudge and fondant.

Hard-boiled sweets require sugar at a higher temperature,

and the addition of a crucial ingredient.

We need to add five or six drops of lemon juice.

By adding this, it stops the sugar recrystallizing,

it's actually called doctoring the syrup.

To test if the syrup is ready,

the confectioner must plunge his hand into boiling sugar.

Cold water gives you a barrier for about a second,

so if you're quick enough, you don't feel it!

-LOUD CRACK

-Well, that's now at the crack.

So, as soon as it hits that slab, it will start cooling down.

We've got a nice, clear, hard candy.

To the uneducated, alchemy, but if you know what you're doing,

definitely science.

But we can make it look like a black art if you want!

It wasn't just experimentation

that determined what went in the Georgian confectioner's window.

The fickle forces of fashion were just as influential.

It's day two and our team are boiling sugar

to the crack to make Jarrin's recipe for bonbons,

French boiled sweets that were all the rage.

What are we doing next? We need to grease our moulds.

-Bonbons. Yes.

-Bon-bon-bonbons.

-Shall we get some almond-shaped bonbons?

-Yes. Ladies, have you got

delicate fingers to grease the moulds, please?

-Do they have to get...?

-Very.

-Very oily.

-They're not pooling in the bottom.

This one just falls off the trivet, so...

So what do you want in this one, Andy?

-Whatever you want.

-Coffee?

-Can you sit that in there?

-Coffee in this one?

-Yeah.

-This is, erm, vanilla.

Oh, that colour's gorgeous.

If they followed Jarrin to the letter,

the addition of colour and flavour should make jars of sweets

that glisten like jewels in the shop window.

-Sorry...

-Do you think it's because of some of the colour?

Andy, are you all right to do that side so I can work on this?

-It is crystallising.

-It's crystallising very quickly.

-I think it's from the colours we've put in.

-Yeah, it's gone.

-Just keep going.

-What else can we do with it?

-Just keep putting it in.

-It's gone.

-Turn it out onto the slab.

-Yeah, OK.

-This one's done the same, look, completely granulated.

-Both of them.

-You know what we didn't put in? Any lemon juice.

-Lemon juice!

-There you go.

-That's why it's gone.

That's why it's gone.

The batch is ruined.

For small shopkeepers needing to maximise their yield,

Georgian confectioners simply couldn't afford

to make mistakes like this.

-How does it taste?

-Sugar.

That's not going to fill a jar, is it?

No. Those are the very expensive sweets.

If the pressure to make a profit wasn't enough,

confectioners were about to come under fire from a different quarter.

In 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade

was formed and began to draw

attention to the role slavery played in Britain's sugar supply.

Among the society's earliest members was the ceramicist Josiah Wedgwood,

whose elegant dinner services graced the tables of royalty,

the aristocracy and the middle classes.

Of course, so much of this fashionable world

was only made possible from

the money that was pouring into British towns and cities

from the sugar trade -

fortunes built on the back of slave labour in the Caribbean.

What is surprising is that Josiah Wedgwood knew this too,

and was determined to do something about it.

Wedgwood was motivated by his Christian faith,

as were many other members of the society.

They distributed thousands of pamphlets and prints

in an attempt to get

the British public to wake up to the cruelty of slavery,

as well as petitioning Parliament to abolish the trade.

When this failed, they came up with a bold plan -

a consumer boycott of slave-grown sugar.

These beautiful little medallions were just one of Wedgwood's

contributions to what would become the sugar boycott.

They're about the size of a small badge.

In the centre they have this image of an enslaved man in chains,

with the words "Am I not a man and a brother"

inscribed around the edges.

Much like wearing an awareness ribbon today,

Wedgwood gave these away for free to anybody who supported the cause.

The medallions were a stroke of marketing genius.

A fellow abolitionist, Thomas Clarkson, noted,

perhaps a little snootily,

"Fashion, which usefully confines itself to worthless things,

"was seen promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom."

Rejected by Parliament, but...

-VOICEOVER:

-The medallions were only one part of the campaign.

So, central to the success of the 1791 boycott

was the dissemination of pamphlets

that gave the public information about the conditions under which

the sugar was being produced. Images were employed.

What it's referring to is an incident

where a young male slave fell ill,

and as a punishment for that,

he was submerged in this vat of boiling sugar.

And then this little caption is saying that, after the submergence,

you'll be currycombed, which was...

Anyone know what a currycomb is?

-No.

-Like a sharp metal brush with pointed ends,

that would be raked viciously over the skin to tear the skin.

I mean, we all know how much it hurts when you get, you know,

-sugar syrup on you.

-Yeah.

Just a tiny little bit, but to be completely...

-Submerged.

-..submerged, and then currycombed.

I mean...

To achieve what?

Just to strike absolute fear.

-In everybody else?

-So that there will be no attempt at escape,

that there'll be nothing that interrupts

-the maximisation of the profit from the crops.

-Total obedience.

Yes.

It's hard to read out.

Sorry.

This incident is very typical of day-to-day life

in the Caribbean colonies.

But with Britain so financially dependent on this brutal system,

a consumer boycott presented a clear moral dilemma

for confectioners and their customers.

There is, however, an alternative source of sugar,

and that comes from the newly developing East Indian sugar.

However, it's a lot more expensive,

because it's not being made by slave labour.

The moral dilemma for people in your profession is, what would you do?

I'm not sure at the time whether, even despite all of this,

whether there was sufficient public pressure.

Was it ever employed as a marketing tool?

-Yes.

-Did they ever sort of say, "Ah, but our sugar comes from..."?

Yes, there was, and if you made the decision to use the sugar

from the East Indies, you could have put a poster like this

-up in your window.

-Ah!

"By six families using East India instead of West India sugar,

"one slave less is required."

I think we're much more ethical now.

-I think we are.

-I am, and I would go down the more ethical route.

As independent entrepreneurs,

the use of East Indian sugar was a big financial risk

for Georgian confectioners.

West Indian plantation owners were the most powerful political lobby of

the time, and they persuaded the government to impose heavy duties

on the East Indian sugar,

making it three times more expensive than their own product.

-Ready?

-Yeah.

-The colour's coming out, though, look.

-Look at that green.

Confectioners needed to create sweets so enticing that customers

would be willing to pay the extra cost for their more ethical product.

So, Andy, Diana, Paul and Cynthia

are trying a recipe for beautifully coloured French ribbons,

another type of boiled sweet.

It says in this book to roll it into long thin strands and then plait it

-and knot it and whatever else.

-Right, OK.

-So whatever you can do, really.

-Not as easy as it looks, is it?

No, nowhere near.

I am clenching my buttocks with the heat.

-It's crystallising.

-It is, isn't it?

-The green's gone.

They remembered the lemon juice but, once again,

the sugar is crystallising, wasting precious ingredients.

-That's gone.

-You've lost that now.

-Ohh...

What are we going to do, then? What are we going to do?

I've got the weakest hands.

-We've lost that one.

-It's so tricky.

It says French ribbon,

and I was imagining all of us being able to pull flat ribbons.

-I was, yeah.

-And twisting and curling and bowing.

-I was.

-It's really frustrating.

I feel a bit defeated.

Despite their poor yields,

the confectioners must stock their shop window.

Come and see how they catch the light.

But Diana is concerned about the quality

as well as the quantity of their sweets.

I am gutted that we didn't manage to get this silky, glossy ribbon.

Yeah, but, I mean, when you think about it, when people do sugar work,

they are actually skilled, and they've been working with sugar...

-We're skilled!

-..for, like, decades.

I suppose what's playing on my mind, as well,

is the fact that we've made this decision

to go with the East India sugar,

so we've got to charge more and, you know,

it needs to look absolutely top-notch.

Almost as important as all the sweets you've put there

is to put the sign up here.

-Definitely get the sign in the window.

-Absolutely.

The sugar boycott was one of the earliest ethical protests

by consumers. Over 300,000 people took part,

with grocers reporting a slump in sugar sales of over a third.

It was also a huge propaganda victory for the abolitionists,

drawing mass attention to their cause.

Finally, in 1807, the decades of intense campaigning paid off,

and the British slave trade was banned,

although slaves already working on plantations were not freed.

It's day three in Bath.

Our confectioners may have struggled to fill their shop window,

but there is still a chance to redeem themselves

as caterers to a wealthy dinner party.

They'll be creating a spectacular dessert course,

starting with a dish that the Georgians saw

as the height of glamour and sophistication - jelly!

Calves' feet.

-Excellent.

-Mmm!

But there's nothing glamorous about one of jelly's main ingredients.

-This is a real delicacy back home.

-Is it, really?

-Yeah, absolutely.

Any African household would get very excited about the sight of this.

-What do you cook them with?

-You typically cook this with

tomatoes and peppers and spices and stuff,

and you give it to really, really special visitors.

You'd probably expect to pay about, I don't know,

£20 for a dish containing one of these.

-Right. So it's a really expensive cut, then?

-Yeah, absolutely,

because the argument is, a cow's got however much of steak in it,

-but it's only got four feet.

-True enough.

-So it's, you know...

For the Georgians, jelly making was a day's work.

-Calm yourself, Cynthia.

-I know, I know!

-Stop thinking savoury.

The first task is to extract the gelatine from the calves' feet.

Ready-made gelatine wouldn't be developed until the Victorian era.

-Lovely.

-So that's going to be an for,

gosh, at least four or five hours, isn't it?

For royalty and aristocracy, sweet jellies had been on the menu

since Henry VIII developed a taste for them,

but the time-consuming process of making jelly meant that

until the 18th century it could only be enjoyed

by those wealthy enough to keep a fully staffed kitchen.

Lovely.

-It does smell extraordinarily meaty, doesn't it?

-It does.

I can picture my mother going, "All that lovely meat wasted!"

After five hours of boiling, the calves' feet are discarded.

It's time for our confectioners

to clarify the murky stock and hopefully

transform it into clear gelatine.

"Beat the whites of five eggs to a froth,

"add one pint of Lisbon Madeira or pale wine, and if you choose it,

"the juice of three lemons."

-And some crushed shells?

-And we'll put the shells in, yeah.

It helps to draw the solids out of the stock.

It's the, um...

Diana, who's trained as a chef, is using the same techniques

which helped her clarify the dirty sugar in the Tudor kitchen.

I think we've got a bag of sugar, haven't we?

No, it needs a bit more.

That is...

-Just meaty?

-At the moment, that is disgusting, yeah.

Just sweetie meaty!

There is a wonderful moment when you're clarifying a stock

for a consomme, where you get this kind of cake of egg white

that starts to set on the top of the stock,

-when you just see this crystal-clear liquid kind of...bloop.

-Yeah.

Any remaining impurities are strained off using the muslin cloth.

That looks beautiful!

Finally, Cynthia and Diana have two pints of precious gelatine

to work with.

Perfect.

-Yay!

-Get you, Miss Lady, you know what you're doing.

Georgian confectionery shops sold jelly by the glass,

allowing easy access to a treat previously only enjoyed by the rich.

But our confectioners are focusing on the more lucrative recipes

of Elizabeth Raffald,

a Manchester confectioner whose cookbook was a bestseller.

Her elaborate dessert jellies epitomised

the Georgian spirit of invention and playfulness.

I'm going to attempt to blow some eggs.

Never done this before, so this could be interesting.

They're making some of Raffald's

more elaborate and eccentric designs -

fish in a pond, and a bird's nest.

Lovely.

I think these are going to be filled back up with flummery.

To make the little eggs for the jelly nest,

the gelatine will be mixed with cream to make flummery,

a type of blancmange.

-Right, I think a pint of cream is about that.

-That.

Yeah. I'm going to start shredding my lemon zest.

-That looks beautiful.

-Really sticky.

I'm going to slice it into very, very thin,

straw-like little strands of nest.

That looks so lovely. It looks like straw, actually.

It does, it's delicate. When we put it on the...

-Well done.

-It does go in.

-Good shot.

-You've done that earlier.

Ooh, it's quite satisfying.

See if we can do a big lump.

If this goes over the edge...

THEY ALL LAUGH

I'm laughing on the inside.

They are also using the flummery

to make gilded fish to swim in the jelly pond.

-It just tastes of air.

-We'll have to shake it a bit

-to get the air bubbles out.

-Bang it on the table

and it will go into all those little nooks and crannies.

Dessert jellies are an elaborate and time-consuming dish.

No wonder they were so expensive.

Oh, I'm so excited about this one.

Confectioners could sell their finest creations

for three shillings each, the equivalent of £16 today.

Actually, that's a good colour, you can see the colour now.

Luckily, this recipe seems to be working.

Cynthia's gelatine is a success, and after just 20 minutes

the flummery is set.

-Just take the shell off.

-It is like the white of an egg, isn't it?

Ooh, not quite as smooth as an egg.

A little bit like a brain.

CYNTHIA LAUGHS

It could be pretty. We could gold-leaf it, though, couldn't we?

-Yeah.

-Just to make it look...

-If in doubt, stick gold leaf on it.

-Shall we try a fish?

-I can't wait to try a fish!

Ooh, look at that.

Look at that!

Oh, well done!

Now the fish pond and bird's nest

need to be assembled and put in the ice chest to set...

-Oh...

-It's OK.

..but it's not as simple as it sounds.

One of the fish is floating, like, you know the way...

-Oh, my God, they're all floating now.

-Oh, no.

It's like wee little Bobby's died in the fish tank.

-Have they moved?

-Yeah.

This is the point where you flush it down the toilet

and quickly run down to the pet store before your kids wake up!

After just an hour in the ice chest, it's time to turn out the jellies.

You know the day before your driving test?

-Yeah.

-That's honestly... I'm churning now.

Is it that bad? Oh, my goodness, I'm nervous as well!

I feel like I'm going to watch you first,

whilst I spent some time praying for this one.

You've got to get that air underneath, haven't you?

THEY ALL GASP

THEY GASP AND LAUGH

-It's looking good.

-Is it?

-It is looking very good.

-Shall I take it off?

-Go on, be brave.

THEY CHEER

-It's amazing.

-It looks quite good.

-Well done.

-Fantastic.

-It's so hard.

-Oh, my God, look at it.

-Put the candle beside it.

-It's rock solid.

Oh, look!

Go for it, Cynth, you can do it!

It's whether the fish want to come out.

Look from below...

If you lift the bowl, Paul, you can slip a little...

So then...

-Oh, it's coming, it's out.

-Yeah, that's it.

Yep, go!

THEY CHEER AND LAUGH

The jellies have turned out almost intact,

even if the fish are floating in a slightly murky pond.

By the 1820s, the number of confectionery shops had soared.

Some cities had seen a fourfold increase since the 1780s.

Despite the abolition of the slave trade,

the sugar they used was still being produced

by those trapped on the plantations.

And there was a deep resistance to change.

The West Indian lobby argued that freeing the slaves

would be an economic disaster for the British.

But the abolitionists never gave up.

Finally, in 1833,

after thousands of petitions coordinated by the campaign,

Parliament passed an act

abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire.

But the government sweetened the pill for opponents.

Now, what's really shocking is that it was the slave owners

rather than the slaves who received compensation.

In Bath alone, at least 67 slave owners made that claim,

and one of them lived here at one of Bath's grandest addresses -

Royal Crescent.

A Jonathan Morgan from number 19

received a total of £12,372

in compensation - over £1 million in today's money.

Despite fears of financial ruin,

little had changed for Britain's wealthy elite.

They could still afford to entertain lavishly,

hiring in teams of confectioners

to create the grand finale for their elaborate dinners.

The dessert course is often regarded as something

quite, quite extraordinary and very separate to the rest of the meal.

That is where, as confectioners, professional confectioners,

you would come in,

but in the middle of the table, you need something showstopping.

You're going to form a landscape.

These are both Capability Brown landscape pictures for inspiration.

The key words here are "taste" with a capital T, and "elegance".

This is really a chance to create something which is pure, pure magic.

I think we need to make sure it's all mixed in,

then we can start putting in the powdered sugar,

-because the powdered sugar's just to stiffen it.

-OK.

They're starting with an almond pastry base

for their edible landscape,

inspired by the designs of Capability Brown.

This was known as a "piece montee".

-Shall we pop them on to see the scale?

-Yeah.

Without breaking the mirror!

Very, very gently.

This way?

The cost and high expectation mean that nothing but perfection will do.

It's a bit like my dad's model railway.

-That's what it reminds me of, doing this.

-Yeah?

-Right.

-There you go.

-That's it.

-That's more like it.

-It looks like a pasty.

Now we need to rig up a washing line.

Diana is making trees by coating sprigs of thyme

and rosemary with syrup and coloured sugar.

-That's quite effective, I like that.

-That is beautiful!

-They smell...

-They do smell amazing, don't they?

Lumpiness going on.

It's getting lower.

I'm happy with that.

The piece montee was made famous by the first celebrity chef,

the Frenchman Marie-Antoine Careme.

The Prince Regent enticed him from Europe with a salary equivalent to

£140,000 today.

You can see how they would have spent a long time creating these,

days and days probably.

For one banquet alone,

Careme created 127 dishes, and the star of the show

was a four-foot-high Turkish marzipan mosque.

It's really tricky.

The smaller the models, the harder it is to get any sort of

features on it. Just going to give her a little sun hat.

She looks a bit more matronly.

I think that's her mother, fussing along behind her,

asking her when she's going to meet Mr Darcy.

High-street confectioners

could never hope to earn Careme's vast salary,

but they could certainly ape his style.

Oh, look at your ladies, they're fantastic!

-Aren't they lovely?

-Look at the weeping willow.

-That's gorgeous.

Investing so much time in a piece montee could be worth it.

Sometimes they wouldn't even be eaten

and could be hired out again and again.

If we were to take some of this crumble...

Ah!

-That's brilliant!

-It is.

-She is good, isn't she?

-She is good, she's very clever.

The centrepiece will test their expertise

in all forms of Georgian sugar work.

Paul's made boulders out of nougatine,

chopped almonds and caramel,

while Andy's spinning sugar for the waterfall.

-Oh, fabulous.

-Fantastic.

-Look at that!

-That is so good.

-Bubbly water at the bottom.

Now all the elements are in place,

the final job is to fill the lake with melted sugar.

Half of me just wants to leave the mirror,

because if it goes wrong or it goes cloudy...

It is risky, but I think, you know, this will be the safe option,

-to leave it mirrored.

-We don't do safe, though, do we?

-No, we don't do safe.

-Right.

Hot, hot, hot.

-Is it cool enough?

-Have you cooled it down a bit?

A little bit. Shall we just put it on there for a second?

Shall we try it on a little tiny piece first?

We could do it here, yes.

Oh, fantastic!

That looks incredible.

There's a huge crystal in it there, look.

If it crystallises, it will just be a winter scene.

-Exactly, with frosted trees.

-First frosty morning of the season.

-I like the shoreline.

-Yes.

-It really makes it look like a real shoreline.

-It really works.

-CRACK!

-Ooh!

-Something happened.

-Has it cracked?

-It has.

-Oh, it has.

That's a big crack.

-Cracked the mirror?

-Yes.

It is the mirror, yeah, yeah.

Let's pop that down.

It is crystallising, look.

Will it go completely white, or will we have a little bit of opaque?

No, it will be opaque. Pearlescent, I suppose.

OK. Which might be OK.

-It would hide the crack.

-Yeah.

The mirror has held together, so the piece montee is intact.

Georgian confectioners offered a whole service -

making, delivering and presenting their dishes.

It was well-paid work.

A bill from the famous Negri's in London

shows one dessert course costing

the equivalent of over £2,000 in today's money.

Beautiful table.

-Right, so it needs to be central.

-Yeah.

Mind the glasses.

A little bit more, a bit more, perfect.

-There we go.

-OK.

-It's sparkling.

Laying the table was an art in itself.

Everything has to be placed in a symmetrical and balanced formation.

-Fruit at the four corners.

-Yeah.

What about a jelly opposite each other here?

And opposite, yes, yes, I like that.

Jelly, jelly, ice, ice.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Ah, hello.

-Hello!

It's exquisite looking.

Isn't this just beautiful?

It really is. No idea what anything is!

But it looks great.

This is really, really good.

This is just so in the Georgian spirit.

Unprecedented access to sugar meant more and more of the British public

were able to develop a taste for the sweeter things in life.

Almost too beautiful to eat!

Georgians have been amazing.

Surprising, exciting, just everything.

That is so good. I am really actually bowled over by that.

The increasing wealth of a rapidly growing middle class

provided the new confectionery shops with an enthusiastic audience

for their artistic creations.

THEY ALL CHEER

It's amazing!

So nice to make something that's totally for show and not wholesale.

Whoever could afford to pay to have something like this made,

they'd really made it, I think, in society.

Cleanses the palate.

As independent entrepreneurs,

Georgian confectioners could express their skills in a way that resonates

with our modern-day professionals.

I do relate to the elegance.

There's so much more refinement and enjoying things being beautiful.

-Ooh...

-That's come out really well.

-It's so clever, isn't it?

It's about showing off my skills as a confectioner.

It's glitz and glam and twinkly.

It's set out with thought and precision,

and my life is all about thought and precision and detail.

It's absolutely delicious.

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

Next week, our confectioners leave the Georgian high street behind

and move into a Victorian workshop.

Look at all the equipment. It's very industrial.

No longer artisans producing high-end luxury goods,

they will be making cheap sweets for the mass market.