By Kaylee Franklin
If you’ve been following us for a while now…you know we love better-for-you treats! Throw in anything vegan, allergy friendly, and with great branding and we’re hooked!
Now personally I don’t have any super strong food restrictions, but I do try to eat relatively healthy and not eat as much gluten and dairy. This can be hard because I love sweets. You all should know by now as some of my favorite reviews have been the ice cream and sweet snack ones! And today is no different.
Just last week, I was having some friends over for a game night. Because I love hosting and anything dessert related, I decided to put together a dessert charcuterie board…or boards. I have some friends that are allergic to dairy and I thought of the perfect treat to include on the boards…Partake Cookies!
A recent brand we had on the show, Partake is a food company that specializes in selling delicious cookies that are gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, and free of the top 9 allergens. In Episode 119: From Scare to Scale, our host Lee sat down with the Founder & CEO, Denise Woodard, to chat about her journey from growing up in North Carolina, to working at Coca-Cola, to experiencing an allergy scare with her daughter, which motivated her to create an allergy-friendly food brand. They talk about the three stages of the CEO role, how important a supportive founder network is, and the mental shifts she's had to make as an entrepreneur.
While I was picking some items up from the store for my charcuterie board night, I saw Partake on the shelf and knew it would be the perfect addition. My local store had four flavor options, and knowing that I would have the opportunity to write about my experience for the blog, and since they were on my mind from the episode, I wanted to give all four a try!
First on the list is Chocolate Chip! At my store, they offered the Soft Baked option, but online it looks like you can also get a Crunchy Cookie! The cookies come in boxes and each box has a good portion size. The Soft Baked Chocolate Chips were the perfect level of softness and didn’t lean on the chewy side, unlike other cookie brands. We were a little hesitant at first with them being Top 9 Allergen Free. I'll admit, some things just aren't as good without dairy and gluten…but these…honestly, are really REALLY good! So good that we were scared to try the other three flavors.
Next up we wanted to try a Crunch Cookie so we went with Ginger Snap! I’m not a huge ginger or gingerbread fan but these were the perfect amount of ginger for a cookie! I loved the crunch factor and the ginger wasn’t overpowering.
Because we had four cookie flavors, it ended up working out that we got two Soft Baked and two Crunchy. So, back to a Soft Baked cookie!
Our second Soft Baked cookie to try was Cookie Butter. I am a BIG cookie butter fan, and let me just say…this did not taste like cookie butter. It honestly tasted more like a Ginger Snap cookie than the Ginger Snap cookie we had just before this one. For that reason, I took a palette cleanser and drank some water, had something else from the charcuterie board, and went to try another bite of this cookie…and I was still getting a lot of ginger. We checked the ingredients and did note that there is ginger in the cookie, but it was kinda overpowering for my liking.
Last on the list was mine, and all of my friends, my personal favorite…Birthday Cake! This cookie was decadent. So delicious, perfectly crunchy, and so so yummy! I personally feel like you can not go wrong with anything birthday cake flavored and that is true with this cookie!
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Since I know you will all ask, here is a picture of our charcuterie board(s)! It was my first time ever making one, so they may not be as pretty as I would have liked them to be, but the cookies made the perfect addition!
One of the things I love about Partake is their branding, as you all know we’re a sucker for amazing branding here at Stairway to CEO! Partake’s colorful and different-colored branding is so beautiful and unique, that it makes them pop off the shelves and stand out from the other cookies. They’ve also been coming out with new products such as Brownie Mix, Pizza Crust, Blondie Mix, and more! Even featuring collaborations with Sesame Street. They also have some breakfast mixes, and according to Denise’s interview with Lee, more fun products and collaborations are to come! We can’t wait to see (and taste) what comes next!
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