(Makes 12 cookies)
Chocolate Heart and Star-shaped Morsels of Love
¼ pound or ½ cup
vegan margarine
½ cup raw organic cane
sugar (or agave nectar)
½ teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon soy milk
1¼ cups flour (white,
whole wheat, both)
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons
dark cocoa powder
(grated vegan
dark chocolate)
2 teaspoons dried ginger
(optional)

Perfect Vegan Icing
½ teaspoon
vanilla extract
2 cups
confectioner’s sugar
6–8 teaspoons soy milk
4 teaspoons agave nectar
(or corn syrup)
Assorted food colorings
Homemade
Wrapping Paper
Plain wax paper
Scissors
Iron
Ribbon
Tape
Colorful wrapping tissue
Gift tags (optional)

Preparing for Valentine's Day, Part 1: Baking Heart-shaped Morsels of Love

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Celsius.
2. Take the vegan margarine and put it into a large mixing bowl.
3. Using an electric hand mixer, turn the setting up to medium to cream the margarine.
4. Make sure the margarine is light and fluffy.
5. Add in the sugar and blend again until everything is smooth and thoroughly mixed.
6. Add in the soy milk, the vanilla, and the lemon zest.
7. In a separate bowl, sift the flour to remove any lumps.
8. Sift the cocoa.
9. Put in the salt and the baking powder together.
10. With the medium setting, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
11. Make sure everything is well blended.
12. Rolling the dough out so it will turn into a base for great cookies.
13. Take a well floured board and take the dough and dumpt it all onto the table.
14. With hands, just start kneading the dough together into a ball.
15. If the dough is too dry, just add a bit of water or a bit of soy milk to it.
16. When the dough is form into a nice ball, take a pin wheel which already flour a little bit.
17. Take the pin wheel, apply even pressure to both hands, and start rolling out the dough.
18. The aim is to make the dough into about ½ an inch of thickness.
19. Shape the dough into heart and star form.
20. Transfer the cookies to the baking sheet, arrange it so that they’re not touching.
21. Put the baking tray into the preheated oven.
22. Bake the cookies, and when they’re done, put them on the cooling rack before putting the icing sugar.

Preparing for Valentine’s Day, Part 2: Decorating Heart-shaped Morsels of Love

1. Put the confectioner’s sugar into a bowl.
2. Add in the soy milk. Stir and whisk with a whisk until it’s blended thoroughly.
3. When the right consistency achieved, add in the agave and the vanilla.
4. Add in about 2 drops of coloring. Stir.
5. The decoration can be made by one of two ways: by filling into a tube or by dipping the cookies.
6. To dip the cookies, just pour about half of the icing out onto a plate. Take a cookie, dip and just press down slightly.
7. When taking the cookie up, just suspend it for a little while for the icing to drip off, and then turn it over.
8. Sprinkle something on the icing for decoration.
9. The other way is to fill in a tube, put the cap back on, hold the tube upside down. Make sure the icing doesn’t drip out.
10. Just drop the icing by following contour of the cookies.
11. To make a creative wrapp for the cookies, make the tissue paper into heart shape. Hold the tissue paper into half. On the creased edge draw half of a heart, and then, using scissors, cut out the heart.
12. Place a paper towel on the table and take a piece of wax paper, about 30 centimeters in length, and place it on top of the paper towel.
13. Sprinkle in the paper tissue hearts with different colors, different sized hearts, and place randomly on the paper.
14. Take a second piece of waxed paper and place it on top of the first piece, so the hearts are right in the middle.
15. And then take the second piece of paper towel and put it on top of the wax paper.
16. Take the iron, put it on medium heat, and just run it over the wax paper. Be careful not to touch the iron to the wax paper directly because it will melt the wax paper.
17. To check to see if it worked, just lift up the paper toweland see if the paper is transparent and the hearts are seen.
18. Cut the pieces of paper to size and wrap the cookies.
19. With some tape, tape together the top and tie a ribbon around it to make it decorative.