Get Kamfortable

Heart Shaped Vegan Sugar Cookies – Perfect for Valentine’s Day

02.04.18

Happy February everybody! I love February because I see a lot of hearts, pink, and love going around and that just makes me happy. February being my birthday month is also pretty awesome! So today I am going to be sharing this amazing recipe for heart shaped vegan sugar cookies to make for that special someone in your life. Or for yourself because you my friend are also special and awesome! Just like these heart shaped vegan sugar cookies!

And the recipe couldn’t be any easier!

You can make the dough for the heart shaped vegan sugar cookies the night before and keep in the refrigerator or you can make it ahead of time and store it in the freezer. Then the night before just thaw it out and you are ready to roll them out and bake them.

I think February is the perfect month to munch on some sweet treats. I have been meaning to post more savoury dishes on the blog, since almost all my recipes on the blog are desserts, but they’re coming!! Don’t you worry, I have a lot of good stuff coming up. But today is once again a dessert (sorry to those folks who keep asking for savoury dishes) 😛

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup coconut oil (at room temperature)

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup almond milk

Royal Icing Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp almond milk

some frozen strawberry/raspberries

Directions

In a bowl or a stand mixer (like the KitchenAid, I love mine!), whisk together the coconut oil and sugar.

Once it is smooth and fluffy, add the almond milk and continue whisking until well combined.

Then add in the flour, baking powder, salt and milk and whisk until combined and a smooth elastic dough is formed.

Place the dough onto plastic wrap and wrap it up tightly and refrigerate a couple of hours before rolling out. You can make the dough the night before and roll it out the next day (this is what I did).

If the dough is too hard once you remove it from the refrigerator, allow it to thaw a couple of minutes before rolling it out.

Then flour your rolling pin and the counter surface. Using half the dough at a time, roll out the dough until it is 1/4 of an inch thick.

Use your heart shaped cookie cutters to cut out your cookies.

Using a parchment lined baking sheet, place the cookies onto the tray and bake for 10-15 minutes at 325’F until the bottoms of the cookies are slightly golden brown. I place my baking tray in the middle rack of my oven and they took 15 minutes to bake.

Allow cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before icing them with the royal icing.

To make the royal icing, whisk together almond milk and icing sugar. Then add your food colouring for the shade you want. I used frozen strawberries and raspberries to colour my icing. Just add a couple of pieces of frozen berries along with a tsp of hot water and add it to your icing sugar and almond milk mixture. You will get this beautiful royal icing that has some specs of berries and it also adds a bit of more flavour!

Once the cookies are cool, using a spatula add on the icing. Let the icing set for 10 minutes before serving.

Hope you all enjoy this heart shaped vegan sugar cookies recipe and are having an amazing February! And if you have a sweet tooth like me and are looking for more easy dessert recipes, check out the Kamfort Food section for tons of recipes!

Heart Shaped Vegan Sugar Cookies

Recipe Type: dessert

Cuisine: vegan

Author: GetKamfortable

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 24 cookies

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup coconut oil (at room temperature)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup almond milk
Royal Icing Ingredients
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp almond milk

Instructions

In a bowl or a stand mixer (like the KitchenAid), whisk together the coconut oil and sugar.
Once it is smooth and fluffy, add the almond milk and continue whisking until well combined.
Then add in the flour, baking powder, salt and milk and whisk until combined and a smooth elastic dough is formed.
Place the dough onto plastic wrap and wrap it up tightly and refrigerate a couple of hours before rolling out. You can make the dough the night before and roll it out the next day (this is what I did).
If the dough is too hard once you remove it from the refrigerator, allow it to thaw a couple of minutes before rolling it out.
Then flour your rolling pin and the counter surface. Using half the dough at a time, roll out the dough until it is 1/4 of an inch thick.
Use your heart shaped cookie cutters to cut out your cookies.
Using a parchment lined baking sheet, place the cookies onto the tray and bake for 10-15 minutes at 325’F until the bottoms of the cookies are slightly golden brown. I place my baking tray in the middle rack of my oven and they took 15 minutes to bake.
Allow cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before icing them with the royal icing.
To make the royal icing, whisk together almond milk and icing sugar. Then add your food colouring for the shade you want. I did a gradient of different shades of red/pink and used food colouring along with the juice from frozen strawberries and raspberries to create the shades.
Once the cookies are cool, using a spatula add on the icing. Let the icing set for 10 minutes before serving.

Kam Travels

5 Things to Do in Parkdale Toronto

01.28.18

Last weekend Gursheel and I went to Parkdale Toronto and had an amazing time. There was so much to see, do and eat and I just loved the vibe of the area. I’ve narrowed down my top 5 things to do in Parkdale Toronto if you ever are in the area and need some suggestions!

1. Have Brunch at Mythology Diner

Mythology Diner is a new vegan spot that just opened a month ago! They have all the classic breakfast options, but they are all vegan! The place is super busy and we came at 2:30pm and barely got a spot before they stop taking orders at 2:45 pm before opening up for dinner in the evening. I got the french toast and was pleasantly surprised.

2. Check Out Some Cool Graffiti Art

There is so much cool graffiti in the area and so many cool spots to take pictures in front of! As you walk around the area there is so much art to admire. Some of my favourite murals were the Parkdale graffiti and this amazing one:

3. Buy Some Flowers or Plants or Take a Workshop

Coriander Girl is an amazing florist on the border of Parkdale so I thought it was perfectly fine to include here. I was looking for a florist in Toronto that had a storefront and Coriander Girl was perfect! I bought a foral arrangement for myself, just cause! If you are in the area, it’s worthwhile to check out this cute shop.

Crown Flora Studio is another great option if you love plants, although they also sell fresh cut flowers. Their studio is super cute and is painted pink all over the outside, making it a perfect place to take some pictures! They had an amazing selection of plants but what caught my attention the most was their Classic Terrarium Workshop! So, if you are in Parkdale for a day, this is the perfect thing to do for a couple hours!

4. Relax and Warm Up with Some Tea at the Kitten and the Bear

The Kitchen and the Bear is this super cute shop that sells jams and jellies while serving scones and specialty tea and coffee. Unfortunately they glaze their scones with an egg wash so we were unable to try the scones. However, their tea was very yummy.

They also provide a jam and tea service where you can choose from an amazing selection of gorgeous tea cups and plates and try an assortment of scones, jams and teas. If you don’t eat egg, then I suggest o just try some tea and buy a jar of jam to try!

5. Grab Some Amazing Coffee and Vegan Dessert at Safehouse Coffee

This cute coffee shop is on the outskirts of Parkdale but just took us 5 minutes to walk towards. We got some chai tea lattes and they were so so good!! They even had a couple of vegan dessert options and we tried a cookie that was the perfect combo with the chai tea latte. They are located next to some more plant stores and this cool vegan store called Good Rebel that sells all the vegan products you ever need including vegan cheeses. It was a good find and one of my personal favourite things to do in Parkdale Toronto!

Hope you found this post on 5 things to do in Parkdale Toronto useful! Comment below if you have any other suggestions on things to/eat in Parkdale!

Kamfy Living

8 Ways to Feel Better Fast When You’re Sick and Cold

01.20.18

My New Year started with me being sick and I wasn’t the only one. Gursheel and most of my family started off the year with feeling pretty terrible so I want to share with you all 8 ways to feel better fast when you’re sick and cold!

1. Stay Hydrated

Drinking lots of water is something that always makes me feel great and it’s especially the case when you’re sick. When you are sick, your body temperature is higher and this means your body needs more fluids for optimal cell function. The more water you drink, the more efficient your body will be in helping you feel better. I recently started trying to wake up an hour earlier every morning and drinking an entire water bottle (my S’well one) once I get up. It actually makes me feel so much better!

2. Use a Humidifier

Back in Vancouver, where everyone was sick together, my brother in law brought over a humidifier that made me feel so so great. When I got back home to Toronto (where it was super cold and the air super dry), I would wake up every morning with my throat feeling so dry. It was the worst feeling. I would wake up in the middle of the night with the worst dry cough and although drinking lots of water helped, it almost meant I had to get up a lot to pee. A humidifier basically works by adding humidity to the air and prevents the air from being dry. Seriously, if you don’t have a humidifier, get one! It is one of my favourite adult purchases. This humidifier is the one we bought from Amazon.

3. Do Gargles

In some warm water, mix in some salt and do gargles. They provide temporary relief to your throat and I love the taste of salty warm water!

4. Drink Lemon Ginger Honey Tea

This is my new favourite daily drink in the morning. It is so quick and easy to make and actually helps me feel better. Ginger is great at helping you get rid of toxins in your body and also helps with nausea. Honey is great at soothing sore throats and also makes the drink taste amazing. The combination of lemon, ginger and honey in hot water tastes amazing and is really great at helping you feel better fast when you’re sick and cold. To keep this vegan, use agave syrup or maple syrup as sweetener instead of honey!

5. Take Zinc and Emergen-C and Vitamin D Supplements

Among the many benefits of zinc, it is very good in boosting the immune system and treating the common cold. You will often find people telling you to take some zinc when you are sick. And it definitely provided me with some relief.

My younger sister had some Emergen-C packets at home and along with providing 1,000 mg of vitamin C (which has some immune-strenthening properties), it also tasted amazing and included B vitamins, zinc, and electrolytes. After drinking it, I felt a surge of energy.

Vitamin D is also a good supplement to take when you are sick because it is easy to become deficient in the Winter time (when most people get sick) since there is either a lack of sun or people stay indoors more. Vitamin D also plays a role in your immune strength and help you feel better fast when you’re sick and cold

6. Rest

Sleep and rest is the one thing that helps you feel feel better fast when you’re sick and cold, but the thing we don’t do enough of. Sleep correlates with your immune systems performance and is always important, regardless of whether you are sick or not.

7. Stay Warm

I love being warm and sometimes it is so hard to feel warm when the temperature outside is -20’C. Yes, that was the temperature in Toronto when I got home from B.C., and it did not help with me recovering faster! So, if you live in a cold climate, the best thing is to invest in some pieces of clothing that will make you feel warm when you are outside.

My favourite way to stay warm is to layer! I like to wear a pair of leggings under my pants and wear a couple of layer of tops with a scarf on top. I don’t own a pair of shoes that are lined, so instead of going out and buying a pair of shoes like Blundstones (which I hear are amazing btw), I bought a pair of wool socks. When they arrived, I thought they looked awfully thin, but when I wore them, they were so warm. I normally would wear a couple of socks with my favourite pair of Sorel’s, however, with these wool socks, I didn’t need to and they kept my feet toasty warm!

8. Throat Sprays

My older sister had this zinc spray that she let me try. You just spray it into your throat and it provides relief to a sore throat. However, I did not like the taste of it so I didn’t try it again. But, I did find that it did work my providing relief.

Then a friend told me about this Beekeeper’s Naturals Propolis Spray which is made of propolis extract from bees. It is also made from bees from B.C. which I found to be super cool. Propolis is something bees collect from trees that helps protect them from bacteria and viruses. The best thing about it is the taste! It tastes good and works very well for throat relief. And it is alcohol free!

I hope some of these tips help you stay feeling amazing this cold/flu season and help you feel better fast when you’re sick and cold. Hopefully, you don’t get sick in the first place, but even if you’re not sick, these tips are still great for feeling great on a regular basis!

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