and an excellent dish for a celebratory  dinner. For this recipe you will need...

Champagne

Sugar

and gelatine

This

is a simple but effective recipe. The  trick is keeping the Champagne bubbles

in your jelly and that means  keeping your Champagne cold.

This bottle has been in ice and salt for nearly  two hours. If it was water it would be frozen.

I'm now going to melt my sugar  in a little bit of the Champagne

and

then after

melt in my gelatine.

Now that my sugar is melted  I will add the gelatine.

Packet gelatine has made making  jellies and blancmanges so much easier.

When I first started I had to make calves' foot  jelly. That means boiling them, then letting

them cool then straining and then clarifying and  then reducing before you could add the flavours.

As this only has sugar and Champagne  this would have been impossible.

Packet gelatine has been about for ten years  or so. But I still insist that the girls learn

how to make calves' foot jelly. It is one of the  modern conveniences that I allow in my kitchen.

I'm now going to get Sylvia to strain  this and then we'll let it cool.

I'm now going to put the rest of my  Champagne in with my gelatine mix.

If you wanted to set fruit in the  jelly then you would need to let

it set a little thicker so the  fruit didn't drop to the bottom.

But I'm only using small moulds so  I'm going to pour it straight away.

Champagne is expensive and comes from France.

Mr Strutt loves it. He was telling me that  in the 18th century the French really tried

hard to make wine without any fizz. They  thought that the bubbles were a mistake.

But the British really liked it. Since  then the French winemakers have decided

sparkling wine isn't a mistake and have also  worked out how to make more robust bottles.

These now need to set so I'm going to put  them in the refrigerator, the ice cave.

Now the jellies are ready to be turned out.  As these are in copper moulds and now ceramic

they should turn out with a quick dip in hot  water or being wrapped around with a hot cloth.

These will look quite elegant  on this plate and will sparkle

in the candlelight of the dessert table.

Some houses have gaslight and I  believe Hatfield House has electricity.

But here we have oil and candles.

I try to put on the table things  that will work with the candles

like this plate with its gilt edge,

these jellies of course, along with the silverware  that the family and friends will be using.

It'll be as if they're having their own  little fireworks display at their table.

Now these are just small jellies.  I've also made a larger one.

As this is a big meal I'm going to  repeat the dish along the table.

There we are. Champagne Jelly.