Chocolate cake is the most traditional dessert. There are variations of it in many different cuisines around the world, and it is uncommon to find a bakery without at least one of them. Chocolate cake is a staple in America. After all, it has undergone revolutionary changes thanks to the work of famous chefs like Ina Garten, been modified for Passover, and combined with zucchini for added moisture and health benefits. Although home cooks frequently enjoy creating bakery-quality chocolate cake from scratch, there are occasions when you simply don’t want to spend three hours in the kitchen or spend forty dollars at a bakery just to enjoy a birthday slice, am I right?
Knowing which store-bought chocolate cakes are the best is useful in that situation, so we chose to save you the trouble. Let me start by saying that it should be an Olympic sport to get 11 cakes home safely while two kids wreck havoc in the backseat. And I would win a gold medal if it did. (Note that individuals with three or more children are in a separate category and shouldn’t be required to compete with them. ).
However, we eventually made it home safely and started working. Six people participated in our taste test: the writer (who loves an excuse to refer to herself in the third person), the father, the mother, the husband, the little girl, and the little boy. For now, let’s get started, but you can read more about how we ranked the cakes in the Methodology section at the end!
Walmart Freshness Guaranteed Chocolate Cake
This brand is not in danger of making it onto anyone’s list of nostalgic cakes, if I may say so without being impolite. As in, ever. The young boy cried out for water as soon as he tasted it, and it was universally despised. It received a score of 1 point 5 out of 5 and was utterly awful in every category (flavor, cake, frosting, and overall). Given that you get what you pay for, this isn’t particularly shocking given that each slice costs only $2.44. Even so, it was somewhat unexpected.
To be honest, we weren’t particularly surprised by this. Walmart once again came in last place when our family sampled and rated ten store-bought carrot cakes. That’s a pretty damning indictment, especially since these taste tests are blind and only you know which cake is which. People, there is a pattern: stay away from Walmart’s bakery at all costs.
Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake
My childhood memories of good times are associated with Pepperidge Farm cookies (Milanos and Brussels), but almost every cookie they make is a 10 out of 10 in my book. So imagine my horror when this cake was not only a total waste of time, as it turned out to be totally gross. And at $5.99 for the whole thing, I had really high expectations, which, again, you get what you pay for.
It got 1.67 out of five, three people gave it ones across the board, two gave it twos, and the mother ranked it slightly higher than that, so it had a bit of an edge up but still tasted like “cheap oil,” which is hardly a ringing endorsement. Avoid this one even at such a good deal; the better deals are yet to come, you’ll see.
Just Desserts Chocolate Fudge Cupcake
This cupcake looked so adorable I figured it had to taste good, but it really didn’t matter because I wanted to try it anyway and I thought there would be enough for six of us (a big worry, but not even close to the biggest concern at 2 out of 5).
The oddest thing about this cupcake (other than the fact that it was a whole lot cuter than it tasted) is that I thought its frosting had the exact taste of peanut butter, and yet the bakery does not use tree nuts or peanuts. And disappointing, too, because the mother remembers it fondly from catered events at her law firm in San Francisco back in the day, but now it has gone commercial.
With that said, Just Desserts does have a few things working in its favor: It is cute so it would be fine as an occasional treat for someone with a nut allergy, and at $3.29 it costs less than most other cakes I sampled so you might be more forgiving of the flavor if you weren\’t sampling ten different kinds of chocolate cake. All in all, I wouldn\’t run from it, but I would certainly pick any one of the higher-ranked options over it (and definitely for the nut-safe crowd).
Private Selection Triple Chocolate Cupcake
Private Selection, in spite of its fancy name, is a rather subpar brand. It is available at Fred Meyer, Walmart, Kroger, Ralph’s, and Amazon, as well as in the Pacific Northwest, where we reside. At $3.99 for a good-sized triple chocolate cupcake, it is fairly affordable, so my initial expectations were shattered when I tasted it. With a lackluster cake and frosting that mostly tasted of hydrogenated oils, it received a 2 out of 6.
Here’s a noteworthy disclaimer. The fact that chocolate is used to make the cake, frosting, and pudding center accounts for the “triple chocolate” designation. But in reality, the pudding center wasn’t situated exactly in the middle of the cupcake. This meant that only one slice had a good chunk of pudding when I cut it into six servings. The lucky person who got the piece with pudding gave it a higher ranking than anybody else, but everyone else was shocked to see it at all. The evidence was in the pudding, really.
Cupcakes are usually regarded as a lone food endeavor, so it stands to reason that most diners would find them delicious and give this a slightly higher rating than we did. Please don’t take that too seriously. Additionally, please take note that this was the better of the two cupcakes we sampled.
Safeway Hershey’s Bistro Cake
The Safeway Hershey’s Bistro Cake received a score of three out of five, making it neither the best nor the worst. While many of us gave the Safeway cake a 3 or 4 because we liked it, the father gave it a 2 in most categories, and the mother said it was fake. Although this cake seems to be more appropriate for children’s birthday parties than for any other occasion, it might work well for a kid’s birthday celebration.
However, at $7 per slice, it was definitely not a bargain. Although purchasing an entire cake is always more cost-effective than purchasing each slice, we were unable to price that out at the store since they were out of one. The decision to go check it out and determine whether it’s worth it is entirely up to you. The frosting was okay (if you can overlook the fact that it’s the dubious brown color typically associated with a changing table), and the adorable little Hershey’s bar on top was a nice touch.
Because Safeway and Albertson’s share a bakery, as we discovered with the carrot cakes, we didn’t test the former. This cake will probably be available at both stores, so pick the one that is closest to you.