Baking is tedious, time-consuming, and often requires a lot of ingredients, which is why we’re more than happy to buy our baked goods in many cases. Rather than toil with stand mixers and flour-covered counters, heading to a bakery fits the bill. But man, are bakeries expensive! That’s where Walmart Bakery comes in.
If you’re cost-conscious, you might consider making Walmart Bakery your go-to for everything from French bread to pies to your kids’ birthday cake and more.
How’s this for a mind-blowing stat? Walmart claims that one in every four cakes sold in the U.S. comes from their stores. If you’ve never indulged in Walmart Bakery items, you could be missing out on big-time savings, at least compared to going to a small bake shop. Of course, Walmart isn’t necessarily the place to go for specialty pastries or high-quality artisan breads. But for casual get-togethers or to celebrate with the fam, it’s a great option to have in your arsenal.
Here’s what you need to know about Walmart Bakery, what “freshness guaranteed” actually means, and why their custom cakes are definitely worth trying.
Find more deals and Walmart coupons with The Krazy Coupon Lady app.
Walmart Bakery has everything from dinner rolls to cookies and cakes.
The Walmart Bakery department is responsible for doling out a variety of baked goods — some that you may not even know that they offer. Here’s the Walmart Bakery lineup:
- Bread, rolls, and buns — French bread, sliced bread, hamburger and hot dog buns, dinner rolls, sliced bread, and more
- Pies and tarts — Regular-sized and mini pies, cobblers, plus no-sugar-added apple pie
- Donuts and breakfast pastries — Danishes, sweet rolls, apple turnovers, and cinnamon buns to name a few
- Cakes and cupcakes — Premade cakes, cake slices, sheet cakes, regular and mini cupcakes, and pull-apart cupcake cakes in a variety of flavors and sizes. You can also order licensed and themed sheet cakes from Marvel to unicorns to sports, etc.
- Breakfast breads — Croissants, bagels, English muffins, regular muffins, and more
- Cookies and brownies — Several brownie and cookie varieties in different sizes, as well as assorted cookie trays and seasonal selections
Is your mouth watering yet? Again, Walmart Bakery may not live up to the standards of pastry chefs who went to a gazillion years of culinary arts school, but they are yummy enough that you wouldn’t pass them up on a dessert table.
TIP: Walmart Bakery does put their products through a quality assurance process that includes several taste-testing panels. Their pumpkin pie even won a blue ribbon in the American Pie Council’s National Pie Championships.
Items are fresh, but freshly baked is a loose term.
Walmart’s Bakery items are marked with a “Freshness Guaranteed” sticker, indicating that products are baked fresh in store. But what exactly does “baked fresh” mean? According to a viral TikTok video, Walmart Bakery products are actually prepared and baked off-site, shipped to Walmart locations frozen, and then thawed or just heated by store associates.
So they are still made fresh, just not necessarily whipped up from scratch in each location. For their bagged goods, Walmart offers up this tip to help you know just how fresh they are: it’s all in the color of the clips or ties used to seal the bags.
Here’s the code for the clips:
- Blue = baked on Monday
- Green = baked on Tuesday
- Red = baked on Thursday
- White = baked on Friday
- Yellow = baked on Saturday
The bottom line is just because you might not find a team of gourmet bakers kneading dough in the backrooms of Walmart, that doesn’t mean that your items aren’t fresh. Or that employees don’t have a hand in some of the preparation stages of your bakery goods.
For customer orders like cakes, Walmart associates do the decorating.
Walmart Bakery’s best deals are on their custom cakes.
If you haven’t ordered a cake from Walmart for one of your events, that means you’ve probably overpaid elsewhere. (Or maybe ended up with a #PinterestFail in your own kitchen.)
Walmart Bakery custom cakes offer a generous variety of customization options, and the best part is that you can order online. This puts Walmart Bakery ahead of another big-box store (ahem, Costco) at which you have to fill out a physical order form in person for their sheet cakes.
How to order a custom cake at Walmart Bakery:
- Head to the Walmart Custom Cakes website.
- Make your cake/cupcake selection.
- Choose your flavors and decorative options.
- Find a store location and schedule your pickup day and time.
- Pick up at the time you specified.
TIP: You can order up to 30 days ahead of time, but Walmart will need 24 hours’ notice in most cases.
What a custom cake will cost you:
If you’re looking to feed a crowd with dessert on a budget, here’s a quick sampling of the Walmart Bakery custom cake prices:
- Basic party cupcakes for 24 people, $13.97 = $0.58 per person
- Pull-apart cupcake-themed cake for 24 people, $24.96 = $1.04 per person
- Two-tiered cake for 64 people, $78 = $1.22 per person
- Round, double-layered cake for 16 people, $22.98 = $1.44 per person
Some custom cakes are even elegant enough for a small wedding — and under $100!
Related: Walmart Clearance Secrets
Find other savings with the bread loaves and cheesecake at Walmart Bakery.
From a loaf of Italian bread for $1 to a strawberry swirl cheesecake for $12.57, Walmart Bakery is perfect in a pinch — especially if you’re pinching pennies. I’ve found it super convenient for picking up a last-minute dessert to serve unexpected company, grabbing a bunch of cupcakes to send with my child to a friend’s house, and picking up some hard rolls for sandwiches at the beach.
