The Publix Bakery Item You Should Avoid

Like many other grocery chains, Publix has an in-store bakery featuring pastries, cakes, cookies, and more. This might allow a customer to satisfy their sweet tooth without lifting a finger in the kitchen, but not all the offerings are necessarily worth the price of purchase. In an effort to determine which items were tastiest and which are best left at the store, Mashed tested and ranked 14 Publix bakery items.

Our reviewer used their extensive experience as a pastry chef when evaluating each item and considered factors like ingredients, portion size, and price. One product stood out as especially disappointing: an individually sold slice of vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. While you can't argue with the convenience it offers, our reviewer was not impressed with it. A major issue was the lack of moisture. The reviewer explained, "The vanilla cake itself was drier than I had expected." This defect was made even worse by the "ratio of cake to buttercream," as there was too little frosting to make for a satisfying dessert experience.

The reviewer surmised that the dryness likely resulted from "leaving a presliced piece of cake sitting out for a few hours, or maybe even days." While there's a simple way to avoid this at home, it's probably not a viable option for Publix. For context, staleness in baked goods is caused by moisture loss as well as the destruction of starch molecules. You can actually prevent sliced cake from going stale by protecting the exposed areas with pieces of bread. The bread will act as a sacrifice as its moisture is absorbed by the soft delectable dessert. Using this trick with your own cakes may spare you from suffering the same fate as our reviewer.

Even if Publix's low-ranking cake slice had been freshly cut, it still suffered from a lack of buttercream. "The frosting [was] the most enjoyable part of the dessert," stated our reviewer, who noted its sweetness and pleasing texture. They found that the chain's cupcakes offered "a better cake-to-frosting ratio." As for the price of this slice, it was about $3.75 (though prices may vary by location). Even though that's not expensive, you might want to steer clear of it anyway if you shop at Publix.