I don’t know about you, but every time I go to a JOANN store I end up wandering down all the aisles and tossing things into my cart that I did not expect (but am pleasantly surprised!) to find. Things like the perfect throw pillows for my couch, pretty pots for my plant babies, and just the other day, I wandered down the yarn aisle and stumbled upon this wool yarn by a brand called Buttercream. It felt like fate, because I want to learn to knit irl and was in need of some Fall cake inspiration. I may not be able to knit a cozy sweater yet, but I sure can make a buttercream cake look knitted with the right piping tips!
A few weeks ago, I got a big package in the mail with the word COOKIES stamped on the side in huge, bold letters (imagine the intrigue of all the postal workers). I’d been looking forward to this particular package from Goodie Girl Cookies, mostly because I’m in love with their branding and I was dying to know if their gluten-free cookies were as tasty as they look. Inside the box were the cutest packages of cookies with flavors like Birthday Cake, Fudge Striped, Mint Cookies, and Chocolate Creme (to name only a few), and I wasted no time popping them open to taste. I can honestly say they are hands-down the best gluten-free cookies I’ve ever had. Like, can’t stop eating delicious. It was the best mail day I’ve had in a long time.
Starting today, I’m hosting a Goodie Girl Cookie giveaway on my Instagram page to give you a chance to have the best mail dayyou’ve had in a long time (or maybe ever)! TWO lucky winners will receive a variety of Goodie Girl cookies, a Goodie Girl tote, a fun T-shirt, coupons for even more sweet treats, and a $50 Amazon gift card. All the details are on this Instagram post, so head on over there to learn more!
Besides the vibrant packaging and tempting flavors, what makes Goodie Girl Cookies so special is that they’re 100% Gluten Free, peanut free, and made from all-natural ingredients. The thing that surprised me the most about them is that if I hadn’t known they were gluten free, I wouldn’t have thought they were. The flavors are so on point and I can’t recommend them enough whether you’re eating gluten free or not!
I got the chance to whip up some fun cupcakes inspired by a handful of my favorite Goodie Girl Cookie flavors to celebrate how delicious they are. The flavors I chose are ones available in their cute little Snack Paks, but they’ve got tons of tasty flavors available in even bigger boxes. Be sure to check them out!
Birthday Cake
This is the flavor I was most excited to try, and it totally lived up to the hype! They’re all-natural vanilla wafer cookies with a funfetti vanilla creme filling in the middle. There’s something about funfetti filling that’s just downright magical.
These Birthday Cake Cookies are perfect for a topping funfetti cupcakes with vanilla buttercream (tinted pink for good measure). I finished off the look with some pretty sprinkles and a birthday candle for extra fun.
Fudge Striped
I grew up on Keebler Fudge Stripes cookies, so I was really looking forward to trying Goodie Girl’s version. They’re buttery little cookies, dipped in and drizzled with chocolate fudge. I ended up eating way too many of these (still can’t stop), because the flavor is amazing! I think they’re my favorite of the bunch.
These Fudge Striped cookies are all you need as cupcake toppers (they’re so cute!), but I drizzled some chocolate ganache on top to really enhance those stripes.
Mint Cookies
If you’re into the Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies (who isn’t?), these Mint Cookies are going to rock your world! They’re Goodie Girl’s top seller for good reason – a delicious chocolate mint wafer covered in chocolate fudge perfection. I honestly can’t believe they’re gluten free.
I used some mint frosting (tinted mint green) to top these cupcakes before adding a whole Mint Cookie, then crushed up a few to sprinkle as a finishing touch. I couldn’t resist adding a little mint leaf, handpicked from my garden (don’t be too impressed, it’s the only thing that’s growing back there).
Chocolate Creme
A tasty chocolate wafer cookie with soft vanilla creme filling, reminiscent of an Oreo and honestly just as good. My husband has been loving these ones all week!
I love a good cookies and creme anything, so I crushed up some of the chocolate wafers and added them to vanilla buttercream before piping it onto these cupcakes (so yummy). Then, I added a Chocolate Creme cookie and sprinkled some crumbs on top.
Vanilla Creme
An all natural vanilla wafer cookie sandwiching a soft vanilla creme filling. It’s perfect for any vanilla lover and has such a great texture contrast between the crunchy wafer and the smooth creme filling.
I snapped this one in half to top these vanilla cupcakes, then crushed the other half into cookie crumbs that I sprinkled over the whole thing.
Chocolate Chunk
These mini chocolate chip cookies have the perfect amount of crunch. I was so surprised to learn that one serving of these Chocolate Chunk cookies contains less than ⅓ of the sugar as one cup of regular low-fat vanilla yogurt! It made me feel even better about eating so many of these ones!
Inspired by these chocolate chip cuties, I topped each vanilla cupcake with a whole Chocolate Chunk cookie and a good sprinkling of mini chocolate chips.
Are you drooling yet? Cause I am! Be sure to head to Goodie Girl’s online shop to see even more of the flavors they offer. And don’t forget to enter the giveaway on my Instagram by Wednesday, November 6th at 11:59PM PST for your chance to win a big box of Goodie Girl fun!
Disclaimer: I was compensated by Goodie Girl Cookies for my work of creating this project, styling, filming, photographing, and writing about their products. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Sugar & Sparrow.
When it comes to Fall flavors, caramel apple is one of my very favorites. I was so inspired by the combo of salted caramel and tangy apple that I created this Caramel Apple Cake recipe last year (so good!) and topped it with a homemade caramel apple because yum. Instead of cake today though, let’s talk about caramel apples. Particularly, caramel apples dipped in this #Blessed sprinkle mix by SprinklePop:
These past few months have been crazy. Between the demands of the holiday season coming up and working on a never-ending list of house projects, I am feeling perpetually frazzled these days. Despite the chaos, I thought a little recipe creating sesh would be perfect for me because baking does something good to my soul. I was right. I put on some Springsteen and decided to try my hand at creating the perfect pumpkin layer cake. Five rounds of bakes and a handful of albums later, I am so thrilled with how this Pumpkin Layer Cake turned out.
When it comes to spooky sprinkles, SprinklePop is killing it. They’ve got the perfect collection of Halloween and Fall-themed sprinkles, and I’ve gotten to create some amazing projects with them in the past (my fave being this scary Monster Mashup cake!). This year I got the chance to play with their Dia De Los Muertos mix, and I fell so in love with the little sugar skulls that come in the mix. Paired with a festive color scheme and some piped Candy Melt spiderwebs, they look downright amazing on these cupcakes:
When it comes to Halloween, Candy Corn is one of the most iconic treats of all. Fun-sized candy bars might be tastier (in my opinion), but nothing beats Candy Corn when it comes to looks! As I perused the aisles of my local JOANN store looking for the perfect Halloween cake inspiration, the bag of those little yellow, orange, and white kernels sitting on the shelf made a light bulb go off in my head. They gave me the perfect inspiration for this non-spooky, yet festive cake design:
It’s the season of all things scary and if you’re planning a Halloween party to celebrate, you know that the dessert table has to be creepy (yet tasty!). I’m all about Halloween cakes that are the perfect balance of cute and spooky (aka not over-the-top gory), so when The Cake Blog asked me to create a Halloween party cake, I thought this oozing Witch Cauldron Cake would be ideal! Just imagine this showstopper at your next spooky soiree:
I’m a tea lover all year round, but once Fall hits and things start to get cozy, chai is a staple in my tea cabinet. The aromatic spices in a cup of chai are unreal and totally reminiscent of Autumn. So when I decided to bake up those spices in cake form, not only did my kitchen smell amazing, but this Spiced Vanilla Chai Cake tasted like an Autumnal dreamscape! It’s the perfect cake for welcoming the changes of the season whether you’re a tea lover or not.
I’ve been swooning over shag cakes for years now, so when The Cake Blog asked me to do an autumn-inspired shag cake I was all about it! Heavily inspired by shag carpets of the 1970’s, the texture of this buttercream is unreal. It took everything in me not to run my hands through it after the cake was finished. Just look at it:
If you were offered a ticket to space, would you go? I totally would (even though I’d be terrified) because I have always been captivated by all things space. The planets, the stars, the crazy colors, the final frontier – it would all be worth floating around in a spaceship and eating weird food just so I could see it all up close! So far, the closest I can get is channeling my love for space into an out of this world Galaxy Cake:
