Hi everyone,
Welcome back to my sweet blog and hellooo to finally feeling like real Spring weather in Toronto!! I know, It’s been a longggg winter with snow and cold winter weather in April, crazy right?? 😉 I’m just so happy it’s warm again with higher temperatures and the beautiful sunny days are finally here!! I can’t believe it is May already too!! Seems like we are going from winter to summer quickly instead. Hope everyone been surviving a colder Spring weather and ready for sunny & hot days ahead!
I’m excited to share with you a new gluten free and vegan dairy free bakeshop that I discovered a few weeks ago when the weather was a bit warmer out great for exploring downtown Toronto and found, Almond Butterfly Bakeshop & Café. It is located downtown Toronto’s vibrant Harbord Street Village near Spadina and Harbord close to University of Toronto St. George campus.
Almond Butterfly is a 100% gluten free bakeshop café that offers vegan, dairy free and paleo options. It is homemade and freshly baked goods everyday at the shop from fresh-baked muffins, brownies, bagels, cupcakes, cookies, scones and more!! They also offer toasted breakfast sandwiches and grilled lunch melts until 3pm, which is great to me that they can offer gluten free and vegan lunches for more options. Even though I still have wheat in my diet, it’s good to know and have my options open to try gluten free food as after trying at this bakeshop, I enjoy gluten free food. From their website, they use nut flours and nut oils in their baked goods to give their signature Almond Butterfly taste that their customers have come to know and love now. They also serve espresso, coffee and tea, which their coffee is roasted locally by Social Coffee & Tea Co. Overall, a great range of selection for a gluten free bakeshop café that offers vegan and paleo options, which is rare to find in certain parts of Toronto and it’s great to see more cafes like these for people like me who is allergic to dairy.
That is why I like to share my discovery of dairy free or vegan bakeshops with you guys, my readers so you can know where to find these allergy friendly bakeshops to eat at and that they are bakeshops that are also good and delicious tasting ones to go to.
When I arrived at Almond Butterfly for the 1st time there, it was on a busy Saturday late afternoon. The café was quite full already and there was a lineup, which in my opinion a busy bakeshop means the food here is good. The atmosphere was buzzing in a great friendly way with people enjoying their baked goods. Almond Butterfly is a cozy, quaint and down to earth feel type of bakery with their beautiful and simple interior design of the wooden walls, the lighting and splash of colour throughout the bakeshop. It was a smaller size bakeshop, but there was enough space for a few tables for people to sit and eat along with a small patio in the front. I love their variety of baked goods offered as mentioned before so it was a bit of hard decision to pick which desserts I wanted.
I ended up having a late lunch at Almond Butterfly Café and Bakeshop as they offer lunch sandwiches such as grilled melt sandwiches and decided to try one of them. I had the Harbord Melt, which is a deli-style turkey with apple and cheddar melt on a gluten free bagel. I requested the dairy free cheddar for my sandwich. I was so excited to try the grilled melt turkey sandwich and unfortunately it was a bit disappointing mainly I think it was a bit too salty for me, the fresh grilled apples was great addition though to it but I believe the turkey that was too salty. Not what I expected. But maybe next time I will be trying their pizza bagels to see if that one is better. I hope that they improve on their sandwiches!
But I really enjoyed and loved their baked goods more than their savory items. I ended up with 2 different types of cookies – Ginger Snap and Sugar cookies, which I didn’t take any photos as I was so excited to try them. My fave is definitely the Ginger Snap cookies, soft and chewy I loved it!! I had 2 cupcakes – Almond Jam Vanilla and Dairy-free Lemon Vanilla cupcakes (both were Dairy-free cupcakes as they just named one with DF lol). I enjoyed both of the cupcakes as they were moist and the frosting wasn’t too sweet either it was just the right amount of sweetness. I love the sour candies on top of the Dairy-free Lemon cupcake, yum as I love sour candies…😊 I really enjoyed the Almond with Jam cupcake though I was hoping there was jam inside the cupcake not just the top as it would have had more pop of a flavour to it. Overall, amazing vegan and dairy-free cupcakes from Almond Butterfly definitely would recommend them to everyone!!
Almond Butterfly Cafe & Bakeshop Exterior with a patio area too
Quick Update
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I was working for a temporary Administrative work, but that is done now. Still looking for the right balance along side with my blog, but I’m happy to be refocusing on my blog again and looking for new opportunities. It’s getting closer to summer season and usually I’m busy with day trips and food festivals.
I’m really excited for my tropical and beach vacation to Jamaica in less than one week (leaving next week)!!! Ahhhhh!! I can’t believe it’s approaching so soon!! Looking forward to relaxing, refreshing my mind and body and just enjoying the sun, sand and pool days in Jamaica. Yes I will be posting a few vacation photos on my Instagram so don’t forget to follow along there for my photos & stories!
Stay Connected With Me
Don’t forget you can always stay in touch with me for the latest updates on my blog through Twitter @SweetBFoodie24 and my foodie adventures and vacation photos on Instagram @SweetBFoodie24.
Why not stop by Almond Butterfly Café & Gluten Free Bakeshop and see for yourself why I love this vegan, dairy free and gluten free delicious and tasty bakeshop offering a variety of baked goods! I highly recommend Almond Butterfly Café and Bakeshop and hope you love it as much as I do because their slogan says it all,
“No gluten. No wheat. No soy. Vegan and Paleo options.
Breakfast. Lunch. Espresso.
Amazing taste. Extra love.
… this is Almond Butterfly in a nutshell! :)”
Until next time, I’m off on my tropical vacation to Jamaica, but I’m always on the search for my next new sweet desserts craving…😊
-Sweet B.
For more information on Almond Butterfly Cafe & Bakeshop, please see below:
Check out their website – Almond Butterfly Cafe & Bakeshop -> click here
You can follow them on social media networks on Facebook @AlmondButterfly, Twitter @AlmondButterfly and Instagram @AlmondButterflyCafe.