12 Things Every Fan Should Know About Walmart's Bakery

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If you're one of those people who can't pass up a pack of muffins or the latest holiday treat when you walk through the Walmart bakery, you're going to be interested in some of the bakery's secrets. There's no reason to be just a passive Walmart bakery fan when you can be a mini expert. In fact, you might even find yourself dropping by the bakery more often with these facts in mind.

There are all sorts of interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits to know, like which items are more likely to be baked onsite and where you can find a Walmart bakery tasting lab. When you're shopping in the bakery, knowing a few secrets can help you get the most out of your trip, like knowing how to find the freshest bakery items, when to find good markdowns, and all the tips and tricks of ordering a cake. Plus, we have the lowdown on which bakery items are must-tries as well as which ones you can skip. No matter whether you're shopping at a small Walmart Neighborhood Market or a larger Walmart Supercenter, these 12 facts about the store's bakery will have you getting far more out of your shopping experience.

There's a reason you don't walk into Walmart and end up having your nose lead you directly to the bakery; most bakery items are baked elsewhere. That Freshness Guaranteed brand label and the clear packaging might make you feel like you're getting something baked fresh onsite. However, the majority of bakery items are baked in a facility off-site, even though some Walmart bakeries still have a sign declaring that the baked goods are baked fresh every day.

According to Walmart employees on social media who have been with the store for a long time, the amount of items that are baked fresh in the store has decreased dramatically over the years. There was a time when the baking and packaging process took up nearly a whole 8-hour shift each day. However, now, there are usually just a few breads that get baked in the store. Instead, the bread dough, like many other bakery items, comes to the store frozen. For the most part, employees simply bake, warm, or thaw these frozen items. Although there are a few items that require proofing before baking, like baguettes and a few breads. Basically, if it's sold by weight, it's probably made onsite. As a result of switching from freshly made and baked to frozen, employees say that most products (like cookies) just don't taste as good as they once did. And some customers have reported getting home only to find items like pies still completely frozen.

No matter where items were baked — on- or offsite — the bag clip colors in Walmart's bakery section can help you know when items were baked. Once you learn the color-coding system, you can more quickly peruse the bakery department to find the newest baked goods, looking for items made closest to today rather than checking the sell-by dates.

This concept isn't new, as many brands use twist tie colors to indicate when they baked their bread. And the good news is that once you know the color codes for one brand, they tend to hold for other brands, including the items in Walmart's bakery with clips. Items with a blue clip were baked on Monday, green on Tuesday, red on Thursday, white on Friday, and yellow on Saturday. In case you forget which color hits on which day, just remember that the colors are in alphabetical order. Yes, we're aware that we skipped Wednesday and Sunday, which some people say is because bakeries don't bake on those days, or at least some didn't in the past.

Even when the product doesn't come with a clip, there are still other ways to find hints about freshness levels without having to read labels for sell-by dates. One trick involves paying attention to the location of the product within the bakery section, while the other trick involves ensuring you're getting an item that's not even in the store yet.

First of all, you'll want to notice where the item you want to buy is located. Employees tend to stock from back to front since most customers grab the item nearest to them, and the store wants to be sure to sell the oldest items. Thus, if your item is on a shelf that allows this kind of order, you'll want to reach to the very back of the shelf to find the items that are freshest. It probably goes without saying (but we'll say it anyway) that the items on the clearance rack in the bakery are going to be the items that are the least fresh, which can provide good deals but may be staler than you'd like.

If you want to purchase a decorated cake rather than any of the other offered baked goods, you'll need to plan ahead. Many customers on social media have noticed that if they pick out a blank cake from the store to have decorated, they tend to be dry. So, to get a better quality cake, they custom-order a cake online. This ensures that you'll be getting a new, fresh cake rather than one that's already been sitting on the shelves.

If you don't mind products that are a little less fresh or slightly out of season, you can find some really nice discounts on Walmart bakery items. However, for many items, you can simply reheat them to refresh them. So, being an older item doesn't have to be a dealbreaker and can be rather budget-friendly.

Walmart shoppers on social media have found deals as cheap as $0.27 per loaf of bread among the bakery markdowns. However, most of the discounts seem to start at around $1.00 off the regular price. Something else we've often encountered is holiday-themed pastries available at deep discounts the day after the holiday.

We've seen a lot of markdown times mentioned on social media, but there's no general consensus about when every store does markdowns. So, you might just have to keep an eye on what's happening in your store and draw your own conclusions. One person on social media even said their location switches up the times so that bargain hunters don't all descend on the store at once. However, markdowns seem to often happen toward the end of the business day. So, you might have a better chance of encountering them during a late-night or early morning shopping trip.

Back in 2016, Walmart opened a Culinary and Innovation Center with tasting labs at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. The center features not only a bakery kitchen like the bakeries in Walmart stores, but also home kitchen appliances to help them simulate both the store and customer baking experience. Plus, the center is where employees and customers can test new products.

The center's sensory lab tests various food items, like private-label bakery goods that come from the company's suppliers, to ensure they're of great quality before they ever hit the shelves. While part of the testing that happens there certainly comes from employees, the lab also uses customer feedback for items that they plan to put on bakery shelves. There's even a station for blind taste tests for new products. The company uses the information it collects about product feedback to inform its chefs and suppliers about what bakery items are ready for customers and which ones might need a little work to make customers happier with them.

Cakes are a big part of bakery sales, with the company explaining (via Yahoo! Finance) that since 90% of the people in the U.S. live within a 10-mile radius of Walmart, people in the U.S. buy 25% of their cakes from Walmart. With there being so much demand for Walmart cakes, the company finally started taking cake orders online in 2018, with the website showcasing just how customizable Walmart cakes really are.

Customizations start with the flavor of the cake and go on to include whether you want buttercreme or whipped icing and which filling you want (strawberry or Bavarian creme). With multi-layer cakes, you can even get multiple cake flavors and indicate which goes on the top and which on the bottom. Beyond large sheet cakes, there are also round cakes, specially-shaped cakes like heart cakes, barrel cakes, cakes made out of cupcakes, piñata cakes with sprinkles ready to spill from inside, and more. Plus, the fact that the bakery offers multi-tiered cakes means that many people buy budget-friendly wedding cakes and anniversary cakes from Walmart, which seems to be a success for those who have tried it. You can even have a photo printed on top of the cake, and some even come with fruit on top.

While being able to customize cakes online certainly makes the ordering process easier, some customers have found that they get better results on complicated orders by using old-fashioned ordering methods involving talking to a real person over the phone or in person. However, it seems like going in person is the best option of the three, especially if you want to ensure you're getting exactly what you want.

Talking to someone in person allows you to be more in control of your order and ask questions to find out if what you want is even possible based on the level of expertise of the cake decorators. This way, you can ensure you get the colors you want and make special requests that you couldn't make online. If what you want isn't possible, you can have a discussion about what is possible that will make you (hopefully) just as happy. In person, you can also flip through the cake design book to show the employee something that's closest to what you want to more easily explain how you want it customized. The employee may even have some ideas or design elements to help you elevate your vision. Plus, talking to someone in person allows you to find out just how much ahead of time you need to order for good results based on how busy the bakery is.

One really neat feature of the Walmart bakery is that you may be able to get a free smash cake for your baby's first birthday. If you're thinking there must be a catch to getting a whole cake for free, you're correct.

So, what's the catch? You also have to buy another special-order item from the Walmart bakery within a certain price range. For most people, this probably means buying cakes or cupcakes for the rest of the birthday guests and getting a free cake for the baby to smash. And, don't worry, Walmart already has plenty of ideas for cakes and other treats to match the baby's smash cake. So, they're counting on getting to make money off the deal in the end. After all, your baby only turns one once.

Unfortunately, not all locations offer free smash cakes. So, be sure to ask before you make an order and assume that the baby's cake is free.

Walmart bakery offers two styles of frosting for its cakes: buttercreme style and whipped. The differences between the two types of frosting can give you an idea about which one you'd prefer for your cakes or cupcakes. Which one you should choose depends on your tastes, decoration choices, and longevity needs.

Both the flavor and texture of each of these two frostings are different. In general, the buttercreme is thicker and creamier, with a flavor profile that's richer and sweeter. Meanwhile, the whipped one has a texture that's more delicate and fluffy, with a flavor profile that's more on the light side with less sweetness.

Your decorating and longevity needs matter when it comes to which one to choose. Because of the textural differences, the frosting color is likely to come out slightly different depending on which one you choose. The decoration quality might differ as well unless you're opting for something fairly simple. Since buttercreme is thicker, frosting designs tend to come out more well-defined. Thus, if you want fancy flowers or other well-defined decoration, you might want to go with buttercreme. In fact, this may be something where having an in-person conversation with the decorator can help you decide. Something else to consider is how long you need the cake to last. While a buttercreme frosting can hold up for a couple of weeks refrigerated, whipped frosting is only stable for about three days.

Yes, you read that right. If you like Walmart's frosting, don't want to make your own, and don't want to buy the type that comes in those sad little tubs in the cake department, you may be able to buy frosting directly from the Walmart bakery if your location offers it. In fact, not only can you get the buttercreme, but you can also get the whipped icing in bulk.

The bakery sells its buttercreme frosting by weight. Like in the deli department, each portion comes in a deli tub that will hold 1 to 2 pounds, and the bakery employee will weigh it and label it with a price tag that you can use at the regular checkout counter. We've also seen that some locations offer it in cake-decorating squeeze tubes, so it may depend on which Walmart you go to. Do keep in mind that customers on social media have mentioned that they have to strategize when they visit to request frosting to ensure it's a time of day when there are employees in the bakery. Even then, not all the bakery employees seem to know how to weigh it and make the labels.

While you could just buy white buttercreme frosting and color it yourself, that's entirely unnecessary. The reason? You can actually buy pre-colored frosting. So, go ahead and get a tub of every color you need and save yourself the hassle of making and coloring it yourself.

If you're a Walmart bakery fan, you shouldn't miss out on the best items the department has to offer. Our writers have done lots of tasting in the Walmart bakery, and they've found some real winners that you'll want to grab next time you're looking for a sweet bakery treat. Plus, there are others that get great reviews as well.

When we tried and ranked eight Walmart bakery pastries, the two that came out on top were the iced lemon cake and the Oreja cookies. The iced lemon cake came out on top, with the cake being light, spongy, and strongly lemon flavored, and the icing being complementary and lightly sweet. The second-place Oreja cookies were thin, flaky, crunchy, and pleasantly sweet with a light cinnamon flavor. Meanwhile, landing at third place were Persian cinnamon rolls. In our ranking of Walmart bakery pies, the one that stood above the rest was the coconut cream pie, which was creamy, milky, coconutty, and had excellent whipped cream. The second-place winner was a seasonal pumpkin pie, which had the perfect level of sweetness and filling and would pass muster at any holiday feast. Also not to be missed is Marketside cinnamon rolls, which came in second place among eight grocery store bakery cinnamon rolls. With spices that taste like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, big dollops of sweet buttery cream cheese icing, and a nice doughy texture, they're definitely worth a try.

While there are several standout sweet bakery options at Walmart, there are also some that didn't resonate nearly as strongly with our writers in taste test conditions. They're not necessarily horrible, but perhaps they're candidates for going back to the drawing board in the taste lab.

Two specific items stood out to us as being less than great. When we ranked Walmart bakery pastries, the one that came out at the bottom of the list was the strawberry cheese bow ties. These pastries look like they want to be Danishes, but our reviewer found them to be dense and congealed with a filling flavor similar to strawberry Pop-Tarts rather than flaky, light, and tasty. Meanwhile, our reviewer who tried out all the pies was far from impressed with the pecan pie. The filling was largely goopy, with none of the complexities that have the potential for making a pecan pie great, like crunchy pecans and a caramelized buttery flavor profile.