One Was Fired In 2008. One Survived Cancer In Her Early Twenties. Now Their Companies, Baked By Melissa And Sweet Loren’s, Are Putting A Piece Of Real Cookie On A Gluten-Free Cupcake For 31 Days Only

Baked by Melissa and Sweet Loren’s are selling a limited-edition line of six gluten-free mini cupcakes, each topped with a piece of baked Sweet Loren’s cookie. The collection went on sale October 1, 2026, and the companies say it will be sold through October 31 only. Their press release ties it to National Cookie Month.

The two brands announced it in a joint Instagram post on October 1.

View this post from Baked by Melissa (@bakedbymelissa) and Sweet Loren’s (@sweetlorens) on Instagram

Two founders who started over

Melissa Ben-Ishay writes on Baked by Melissa’s About page that she was working as an assistant media planner in 2008 when she was fired. She called her brother that day. By her account, he told her to go home and bake her cupcakes, and they would build a business out of them. The New York company’s first shop was a pickup window in SoHo. It now has nine locations and ships its bite-size cupcakes nationwide.

Loren Castle’s story starts with her health. Sweet Loren’s site says that after surviving cancer in her early twenties, she made it her mission to eat good, clean foods. The site’s timeline has her working on recipes in a tiny studio apartment in New York City and selling at farmers markets, then reaching the shelf at the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle in 2012. Her ready-to-bake refrigerated cookie dough is now in more than 30,000 retailers, according to the release.

The six flavors

Each cupcake carries a piece of the Sweet Loren’s cookie it is named for, according to the release.

• Chocolate Chunk: yellow cake with chocolate icing.
• Salted Caramel Chocolate: chocolate cake filled with dulce de leche, with a ring of salted dulce de leche icing, cookie pieces and Maldon salt.
• Fudgy Brownie: chocolate cake with a chocolate fudge filling and chocolate icing.
• Snickerdoodle: yellow cake with a cinnamon filling, cinnamon icing and a dusting of cinnamon sugar.
• Pumpkin Spice: pumpkin-spiced yellow cake with cream cheese icing.
• Monster: yellow cake with a brown sugar filling and brown sugar icing.

Several of those flavors have a homemade cousin on this site, all made with regular all-purpose flour and so not gluten-free. Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies fold cut-up caramels and chocolate chunks into a brown sugar dough. Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies cover two flavors at once, with pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice in the dough and a roll in cinnamon sugar. Monster Cookie Bars pack in peanut butter, oats, M&M’s and chocolate chips.

What the brands say about gluten

The release calls the assortment fully gluten-free, made without artificial dyes or colors, and made in a dedicated gluten-free facility. Baked by Melissa’s product page says the cupcakes are baked in its dedicated gluten-free bakery. The same page notes that all Baked by Melissa products are baked in a kitchen where nut ingredients are used. Neither the release nor the product page names a third-party gluten-free certification.

Castle makes the taste claim herself in the release: “no one can tell they’re gluten free.”

Home bakers who want a cookie written for gluten-free all-purpose flour have two on this site. Gluten-Free Bourbon Brown Butter Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies put buttered pecans and dark chocolate chips in a browned-butter dough with a little bourbon. Gluten-Free Chocolate Peppermint Thumbprint Cookies are cocoa and peppermint cookies filled with a dark chocolate ganache. As with any gluten-free bake, check the label on every other ingredient.

When and where to buy

The cupcakes are on sale from October 1 through October 31, 2026. The release says a 25-pack is sold at BakedbyMelissa.com and in all Baked by Melissa stores, and a 12-pack is sold only in stores.

Baked by Melissa’s site listed the 25-pack at $43 on October 5, 2026: five Chocolate Chunk cupcakes and four of each other flavor. That day the page marked the pack sold out, with a notice saying the bakery was “busy baking another batch” and a sign-up to be told when it is ready.