Birthday Cake Cookies (Grain-Free/Dairy-Free)

Bakery style birthday cake cookies are the thing every birthday celebration…or any celebration needs!

The Story:

These birthday cake cookies are so soft, chewy, fluffy, and are packed with that enticing birthday cake flavor you know and love. A grain-free birthday cake flavored cookie, topped with birthday cake dairy-free buttercream, then finished off with a birthday cake crumble. It’s party time! Entirely grain-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, so they can accommodate a multitude of food allergies/sensitivities. I’m seriously so excited to share these with you. Please don’t sit out of the celebration, make these instead!

Jump to:

• The Story:
• The Ingredients:
• Step By Step Preparation Instructions:
• Recipe FAQ's:
• The Recipe:
• The Finished Product:

The Ingredients:

Here is the list of ingredients you will need to make these birthday cake cookies:

• Almond Flour: This grain-free flour gives these cookies a great moisture content and helps them to maintain a soft, chewy texture.
• Tapioca Flour: This grain-free flour is a starch flour that helps these cookies achieve a fluffy texture, and aids in absorbing moisture for the perfect balance.
• Sugar: To sweeten the cookie base and the birthday cake crumbs. Of course a birthday cake cookie needs a good amount of sugar!
• Brown Sugar: A bit of brown sugar gets added to the crumble for a buttery flavor.
• Eggs: Egg yolks provide the perfect amount of structure, texture and richness.
• Baking Powder: I use Otto’s Naturals Grain-Free Baking Powder. It took me a while to find a grain-free baking powder and I am so grateful for it! It works perfectly. This is the rising agent for the cookies, as well as added to the crumble.
• Dairy-Free Butter: Butter in the cookies, butter in the crumbs, and butter in the frosting! You can never have too much butter, right? I love using Earth Balance. It works well in helping the cookies not spread too much.
• Xanthan Gum: This baking agent helps your gluten-free baked goods from becoming too crumbly.
• Salt: A good pinch of salt to balance the flavors!
• Sprinkles: Because you can’t have a birthday without sprinkles! Grain-free sprinkles are hard to come by, this is the only brand I have been able to find that doesn’t use a grain starch. Let’s Do Organic Sprinkelz can be found on Amazon. SuperNatural also offers corn free and dye free sprinkles, along with some other great organic products.
• Clear Vanilla Extract: For that quintessential cheerful birthday cake flavor, you need to use clear vanilla extract! Dark vanilla extract will not create the same flavor as those celebratory treats you know and love.
• Powdered Sugar: For the frosting, you will need to use powdered sugar. I love the Good and Gather brand organic powered sugar found at Target. They offer organic, grain-free powdered sugar and it’s perfect.

Step By Step Preparation Instructions:

• Step 1: First, let’s make the birthday cake crumble for topping the cookies. Preheat the oven to 300. Mix the dry ingredients and sprinkles together. Add in the melted butter and clear vanilla extra, and mix until a crumbly texture comes together. You want a good crumbly texture, not smooth. Variation in size is fun, so just mix until clumps of varying size have come together. Spread out the crumbs on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes, stirring the crumbs around at the halfway point. Allow to cool and set aside.
• Step 2: For the cookies: Preheat the oven to 350. Add the butter and sugar to a bowl (or to a mixer if you would like, but keep it on low speed during the whole process) and begin to work the butter into the sugar until creamy. Next, add in the egg yolks and clear vanilla extract and mix well, again until creamy and smooth. Lastly, add in the flour, remaining dry ingredients, and sprinkles, and mix until the dough comes together. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using a big cookie scoop (3 tbsp), scoop out the dough and place on the cookie sheet, leaving a good amount of space in between each cookie. Bake for 13-14 minutes. You want them to have just a slightly golden bottom. Don’t over-bake or you will lose the delicious chewy texture!
• Step 3: Lastly, for the frosting. By hand, or with a mixer on low speed, cream the butter until smooth. Then, add in the powered sugar and clear vanilla and cream together until smooth and creamy. I have found the most success with dairy-free buttercream when mixing by hand. Dairy-free butter can become soft very quickly when using a mixer, so just go slow and err on the side of under-mixing to begin with.

Recipe FAQ's:

• Are grain-free flours interchangeable with regular flour? In my experience, no they are not. You cannot just trade almond flour with regular flour, or tapioca flour with regular flour. Almond flour has very different properties than regular flour, and tapioca flour also has very different properties than regular flour. Together, almond flour and tapioca flour work well to create a delicious crumb, but they vary in ratios depending on the baked good you are making.
• Are there grain-free baking mixes available for purchase? There are some available! You will find most success in looking for “Paleo” baking mixes. The same company that makes the grain-free baking powder I use offers brownie and cookie baking mixes. Simple Mills also has some grain-free baking mixes available. Bob’s Red Mill and King’s Arthur both have grain-free flour mixes that may work as a 1-for-1 substitution in regular baking recipes. In my experience, it takes a lot of experimentation and trial and error to deliciously execute grain-free baking. All of my recipes have been tested and re-tested!
• What is the difference between grain-free baking and Paleo baking? Paleo baking does not use any grains, gluten, dairy or refined sugar. While I limit the amount of refined sugar I consume, I do use it in my baked goods. While my recipes are all gluten-free and dairy-free, with most being grain-free as well, they do not qualify as paleo due to the use of sugar.
• What is the best way to store grain-free baked goods? Homemade grain-free baked goods should be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator, and are best eaten within 3-4 days typically.

The Recipe:

The Finished Product:

Each sweet bite of these birthday cake cookies are perfectly layered with mouth watering texture and flavor; from the chewy cookie, to the creamy frosting, and finished off with the crunchy birthday cake crumb on top. You say it’s your birthday? Make these birthday cake cookies!