Renew old cakes into meaningful Christmas gifts

Variations on familiar cookies

Cookies are a sweet treat that a few decades ago was a luxury, only eaten during Tet after burning incense or when there was something going on at home.

Nowadays, cookies are much different from before, made with new recipes. They are still flour, sugar, butter, milk but the ingredients are more advanced, the flavors are different, the designs are more novel and imported from abroad. Christmas is approaching, the eye-catching cookie designs coming out of the oven make many people excited.

At a branch of the Watermelon Bakery on Truong Chinh Street, Tu Minh Ward (Hai Duong City), the fragrant smell of baked cookies permeates several floors of the store.

Cinnamon and vanilla cookies, waiting to be painted, colored, and shaped, are famous symbols of Christmas.

Mentioning Christmas makes one think of Santa Claus, pine trees, and white snowflakes. Those lovely symbols are meticulously drawn by the baker on each cookie so that the eater can feel the warm taste of Christmas.

Many familiar images such as snow houses, snowmen, Santa's cane, reindeer... are also vividly painted on each small cake.

It seems like a light, simple job, but to draw tiny, soft details on cookies, bakers must be very focused and meticulous with each stroke.

There are pictures with many details and colors, the baker must be careful, waiting for one layer to dry before painting on another.

Small details like dotting each white snowflake on the cake require even more meticulousness. Sometimes just drawing a small cookie takes more than 10 minutes, not counting the many steps to make the original cookie before.

Ms. Pham Thi Yen, owner of the Watermelon Bakery, said that to make a beautiful and delicious Christmas cookie, it must go through many special steps.

"The layer of paint used to decorate the cookies requires separating the egg whites, steaming them with sugar, and mixing them with food coloring, which is very laborious to paint on the cookies. The cookies themselves are also made with many flavors, and even dried seeds are added to create beautiful and unique cookies, meeting the needs of today's customers," Yen shared.

Food, meaningful gifts for Christmas

On this occasion, some cake shops in Hai Duong also updated new Christmas models to meet the increasing demand of customers.

"Tere Bakery" - an online bakery in Gia Loc town owned by a young lady born in 2004 is also busy with Christmas cookie orders.

"Since November 14, people have ordered Christmas cookies as gifts. Many people also like to buy gift boxes with cookies and colored cream to draw with their children or lovers to experience and make their own products and drawings for Christmas at a price of only 130,000 VND/gift box," said Ms. Bui Thi Thu Huyen, owner of Tere bakery.

Once finished, Christmas cookies cost only 10,000 - 20,000 VND/piece and can be preserved for 10 - 20 days at room temperature, easy to transport, so many people choose them as Christmas gifts for relatives or simply buy them to try, decorate to feel the taste of Christmas.

Not only attracting young people because of their eye-catching and cute appearance, Christmas cookies are also chosen as gifts by many teachers, parents and business people.

In recent years, Ms. Bui Tu Linh (born in 1999), owner of a fashion store of the same name in Gia Loc town, often chooses to buy cookies as gifts to thank customers every Christmas.

"Christmas cookies come in many varieties with many eye-catching designs, shapes, and colors, and are delicious, so my customers really like them. This is a practical gift that everyone likes, and is suitable for Christmas," said Linh.

In addition to cookies, Christmas cakes in Hai Duong are also very diverse, brought into coffee shops and milk tea shops to attract young customers and become a new "accessory" for beautiful Christmas photos.

Ms. Nguyen Bao Ngoc from Thanh Mien district went to Bo cafe in Tue Tinh (Hai Duong city) to take Christmas photos when she saw many beautiful photos of the shop online with lovely and unique Christmas cakes.

"This is the first time I've bought cakes like this. The cakes were just for Christmas photos, and the taste was very good, not too sweet, and for a price of a few tens of thousands of dong for a cake, I think it's quite reasonable," Ngoc shared.

On social networks, many people also order Christmas cookies and cakes, both as a snack to enjoy with relatives and family in the peaceful Christmas atmosphere, and as a practical, inexpensive gift that also reminds them of the familiar cookies of the past.