Free Snacking: Partake

This week on (allergen) Free Snacking is some cookies that were gifted to me for my birthday! Partake Foods was founded by a mom when her daughter was diagnosed with multiple food allergies. In addition to wanting to bring safe snacks to all kids, it also fights food insecurity (by partnering with No Kid Hungry) AND has a fellowship program for HBCU students. Not too shabby, huh?

BUT THAT'S NOT WHY WE ARE HERE! DOES THE FOOD TASTE GOOD?!?!

That’s really the important question here, isn’t it? Well, I was gifted two boxes of cookies- Crunchy Birthday Cake Cookies and Soft Baked Cookie Butter Cookies. A quick perusal of the website shows that they have multiple other cookie flavors (I see you double chocolate!), as well as a lot of different baking mixes.

The Crunchy Birthday Cake Cookies were a hit with my family, though not exactly my favorite. The texture was good- crunchy, as advertised. But the flavor was a little off. A little earthy. Like eating a root. Not terrible, but I think it stems from the cassava flour in the wheat free flour mixture. It might also be related to the rosemary extract- I have no idea why that is in there. My kid’s only complaint was the sprinkles were not as apparent as they are on the box. “Where are the sprinkles, mommy? Those cookies on the box have sprinkles!” My wife said she liked them way more than any other allergen free cookie, so that’s pretty high praise.

Look, there are sprinkles in these cookies. But they do not like the one on the box and it was a harsh introduction to the world of food photography and styling for my kids.

The Soft Baked Cookie Butter Cookies were by far my favorites. I like a softer cookie, and while these weren’t as soft as the Rule Breaker bites, they were definitely softer than the crunchy cookies. The best thing about them, though, was they have a lot of spices (cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg, and clove) that overtake the cassava flour that’s in the flour blend. They are like the most delicious ginger bread cookie I’ve ever had. (Okay, so this is slightly a low bar because are traditional ginger bread cookies that good? But remember they have no eggs, milk, or wheat. Low bar, high praise!)

After my various levels of success with allergen friendly baking, I am also very intrigued by their baking mixes. Something for another day!

 

Slightly off topic- but May is National Allergy and Asthma Awareness Month and next week is Food Allergy Awareness Week. There’s a #AllergyCare twitter chat at 8PM ET on May 10- I think this is an annual thing happening the week after Mother’s Day (because we all know that mothers are usually the ones dealing with food allergies #thanksgendernorms) and I remember when I first saw it 2 years ago right after my kid had a weird reaction to peanut butter. Back before she had multiple food allergies, and just when we were being thrown into this world. Anyways, they always have great information and you should follow @AAFANational and @KFATweets.