'Warm' cakes and 'fragrant' wine

Starting with the December 2015 issue, Travellive dedicates "Slow Living" as a gift to readers, offering moments of tranquility amidst the hustle and bustle of life.

At 7 PM on Friday, after three weeks of nonstop business trips, a packed schedule, and deadlines for the holiday issue, work was finally settled, and I decided to go home. All I could think about was my comfortable bed, hoping a good night's sleep would soothe the nerves that had been working at full capacity for the past few weeks.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days!" – That was the first thing Z. said after kissing my forehead as I entered my apartment – ​​now filled with the aroma of butter, the pungent scent of alcohol, and the fragrance of oranges, lemons, and herbs.

"What are you doing at home at this hour? And the Christmas tree and those ornaments, where did they come from?"

“This afternoon, I stopped by the bakery on the ground floor of the building and saw they had already started playing Merry Go Round and White Christmas, and they had all sorts of Christmas cakes displayed in the window—they smelled absolutely delicious. And as soon as work was over, I went looking for all of these things. Do you remember our first Christmas together?”

...

We nicknamed the gingerbread cookies and mulled wine "warm cookies and fragrant wine." It was the first time we'd ever cooked together. That Christmas, we climbed onto the roof, hummed "White Christmas," ate cookies and drank mulled wine, and fell asleep until the dew seeped through our thin blankets before we finally came back down. Even now, after traveling extensively and tasting wines from many countries, the mulled wine he made for me on December 24th remains the most magical drink. Years after we got married, on special occasions, we still exchange unique gifts brought back from business trips. But it seems that the busy and hectic life has made me forget that the taste of those warm cookies and fragrant wine is what he remembers most of all.

The flour is smooth and soft. The sugar is sweet. The butter is rich and creamy. The cinnamon is fragrant. The ginger is spicy and warming... Tiny pine trees and bells are puffing up, their shells turning a golden brown in the oven. In a glass pitcher in the center of the table, mulled wine is steaming, its red color highlighting the beautiful slices of lemon and orange.

The air was a blend of the rich sweetness of the pastries and the warm aroma of cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves wafting from the wine bottle. Z. helped me find peace after the hustle and bustle of life. Tomorrow, I'll cancel my weekend work. Tomorrow, I'll stay home to my own "slow living oasis," watching the ornaments swaying on the Christmas tree in the corner and celebrating an early Christmas with the clumsy chef meticulously trying to imprint the designs on each pastry in the kitchen…

Gingerbread cookies

Ingredient:

3 tablespoons brown sugar

6 tablespoons white sugar

200g unsalted butter

2 teaspoons of cinnamon powder

2 teaspoons of ginger powder

100ml milk

200g flour

Combine brown sugar, butter, white sugar, cinnamon powder, ginger powder, and milk in a large bowl, then mix well with the flour. Place the mixture on a flat kitchen counter and roll out the dough evenly until it is about 5mm thick. Cut the dough into your desired shapes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Celsius. After lining a baking tray with parchment paper, arrange the cut dough pieces and bake for 15 minutes. The cookies can be eaten immediately after baking or decorated with whipped cream.

mulled wine

- 2 oranges

- 1 yellow lemon

- 50ml sugar syrup

- 5 cloves

- 5 star anise branches

- 3 cinnamon sticks

- 800ml red wine, 200ml white wine

- 50ml water

Slice oranges and lemons into round slices and simmer them in 50ml of water with cloves, star anise, and 2 cinnamon sticks. When the mixture boils, add red and white wine, sugar, and stir gently until the sugar dissolves and the wine infuses the spices. Increase the heat and cook for another 5-8 minutes, then turn off the heat. Pour the wine into a glass bottle and serve hot with gingerbread cookies or other hard pastries.

(Recipes for wine and pastries are provided by the Pastry and Wine Department of the Sheraton Hanoi Hotel)

The Thanh