The Worst Store-Bought Bakery Chocolate Cake We Tried Looks A Lot Better Than It Tastes

Chocolate cake is meant to be a decadent indulgence — a delicious, sweet treat that we can lose ourselves in, even if only for a few moments. Is there anything more disappointing than finally tasting a piece and realizing it is not very good? It feels like a bakery betrayal, which is exactly what our taste tester experienced when trying the Aldi Triple Chocolate Creme Cake. Even though it looks great and sounds delicious, it fails to deliver on its chocolate flavor promise.

When we reviewed store-bought bakery chocolate cakes, one of them had to end up in last place. Unfortunately, the Aldi Triple Chocolate Creme Cake not only ranked last, but it was a huge disappointment. For a cake that boasts being chocolate, with a chocolate drizzle and chocolate chips, you would expect there to be a big chocolate taste. But somehow, despite its rich, dark appearance and added toppings, it barely had any flavor.

While the cake is definitely moist and certainly looks delicious, the flavor is so lacking that it is almost unforgivable. The chocolate chips offer a nice textural element and a decent dark chocolate flavor, but they cannot make up for the cake's lack of overall taste. Our taste tester even said that, if they were blindfolded, they probably wouldn't have been able to tell it was a chocolate cake at all.

The Aldi Triple Chocolate Creme Cake has some fans online, but others noted problems similar to ours. At least one reviewer agreed it was moist, but noted that the glaze and chocolate chips added texture with little flavor. Interestingly, this reviewer added that they likely wouldn't be able to distinguish it from a boxed chocolate cake mix in a blind taste test. Reddit users have echoed the sentiment that the cake lacks flavor beyond sweetness. Others have commented about the underwhelming taste and that they think boxed mixes taste better. The chocolate glaze on top has also been criticized for tasting artificial.

Comparing the Aldi cake to the best chocolate dessert Trader Joe's has to offer, its Dark Chocolate Ganache Mini Sheet Cake, which our taste tester ranked much higher, you'll notice some specific differences. Aldi's cake is sweetened with sugar and corn syrup, while Trader Joe's uses cane sugar. Aldi has liquid soybean oil plus some palm oil, while Trader Joe's is expeller-pressed canola oil. Aldi uses whey and nonfat milk, while Trader Joe's uses low-fat cultured buttermilk. Trader Joe's relies solely on cocoa, while Aldi includes cocoa, chocolate drops, and Belgian fudge. These ingredients seem like they would enhance the flavor, but they do not.

Trader Joe's doesn't use any emulsifiers or stabilizers, but Aldi includes several different ingredients, including sodium stearoyl lactylate and xanthan gum, that fulfill those functions. Much of what Aldi uses is highly processed, and the flavor seems to have faltered as a result. Trader Joe's took a simpler approach, which may explain why Aldi falls short.