4 Chocolate Desserts From Costco To Buy And 3 To Avoid

Of all the products that you could stock up on at Costco, desserts are one food category that's not to be ignored. In fact, there are quite a few must-buy desserts lining the shelves of a given Costco location, including popular cakes and bakery items, and those desserts that feature a star ingredient that very few of us can resist: chocolate.

Chocolate desserts come in all shapes and sizes, and those that you might find at Costco are no different. To save you the trouble of buying a bulk-sized chocolate dessert that misses the mark, I've purchased and sampled seven popular Costco chocolate desserts and have determined those most worth buying and those most worth skipping.

My criteria in determining what's a buy and what's a skip are pretty simple. To start, the dessert has to not only taste good, but it has to highlight chocolate in a way that makes sense — whether chocolate is successfully the star of the show, or if it's at least used well in a dessert where chocolate shares the spotlight. Either way, the chocolate desserts I recommend are those that taste great, offer a high-quality product, and those that I think are especially worth buying in bulk (because, in true Costco standard, most of these desserts come with quite a few servings). 

I've sung the praises of Costco's chocolate chunk cookies in the past (most specifically in my Costco holiday cookie tray ranking), and I'm more than happy to do it again. There's simply no denying that these chocolate chip cookies are about as good as store-bought gets, between the perfectly soft but not mushy texture and the ideal ratio of cookie and chocolate chunk.

While some grocery store cookies can be inconsistent in texture or quality, the same cannot be said for Costco's cookies. Especially now, having tried them two separate times for two different articles, I can safely say that a tray of these cookies is a reliable bet when you need a quick, crowd-pleasing dessert. Flavor-wise, these cookies stand out because they have such a delicate balance of bittersweet flavors, with the cookie base providing buttery notes and the chocolate chunks providing those semisweet ones. Finally, another perk is that just about every single bite of a given cookie is going to have chocolatey goodness; Costco didn't skimp on the chocolate with these cookies, so for me, they're a must-buy for all things entertaining and indulging.

There's been some controversy surrounding Costco's muffins — more specifically, the muffins are smaller than they were years ago, much to many fans' dismay. One such muffin affected by the downsizing is the triple chocolate muffin, one that I personally don't mind the smaller size of. The flavor, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

It's a bold move to try to make a triple chocolate treat, and by bold, I mean one that's nearly impossible to do well. The biggest issue with these muffins is that there's no relief from the chocolate or even any real distinction between the supposed three chocolate elements, so the muffin ends up incredibly sweet and one-note. Also, I found these muffins to have a strange aftertaste, almost a slightly sour or overly bitter one, and certainly not an aftertaste that anyone would reasonably want from a muffin. The texture also left something to be desired, as it was a little too dense and surprisingly not especially moist (unlike so many other Costco bakery treats). There's a reason why Costco's triple chocolate muffins are one of two types that we'd skip in the bakery section; they're just not as good as they once were, and there are simply better muffin varieties readily available at most Costco locations.

Any super-popular food trend is going to be polarizing, and I'd argue that the meteoric rise of all things Dubai chocolate is one of the most polarizing trends yet. Some people love it, some people think it's overdone. Personally, I'm a fan of the chocolate and pistachio flavor base, but the crispy kataifi is my favorite element. As such, any good Dubai chocolate treat should nail that kataifi element, and fortunately, these mini Dubai chocolate style ice cream sandwiches, found in the frozen treat aisle, really deliver.

Something unique about these ice cream sandwiches is that they're sort of a two-for-one special. One side of the sandwich is pistachio ice cream covered in a kataifi chocolate coating, and yes, the kataifi is super crispy and doesn't get buried in all that chocolate. The other side of the sandwich is sort of a more traditional ice cream sandwich, with more pistachio ice cream and softer cookie-like shells on either side. Needless to say, this is one delicious ice cream sandwich, and a true treat for anyone who likes Dubai chocolate. The pistachio and chocolate elements work really well together, and while I favor the kataifi-coated side, the traditional sandwich side is delicious, too. So, although this frozen treat doesn't necessarily scream chocolate as much as, say, a triple chocolate muffin, it's still a worthy Costco chocolate treat to keep stocked in your freezer. 

It's always a good idea to have a simple go-to frozen treat stocked in your freezer, but Costco's Kirkland Signature ice cream bars are not one such treat that I'd recommend for the job. I'm not the first person to come to the conclusion that Costco's ice cream bars are better left in the freezer aisle. They're just not very good, and it's simply not worth locking yourself into a commitment of 18 bars per box.

So, what exactly makes these bars not very good, you may ask? To me, it all came down to the ice cream-to-chocolate-coating ratio. The chocolate shell just couldn't really compete with the big block of vanilla ice cream in the middle, and moreover, the shell itself ended up tasting more like almonds studded throughout than chocolate itself. I'm not going to sit here and say that the bar I sampled tasted downright bad, but it just didn't hit those quintessential chocolatey notes that I was looking for. In reality, eating this bar was a lot like just eating vanilla ice cream with pops of chocolate and even bigger pops of almond here and there — not exactly the experience I'm looking for in a supposedly chocolate-covered dessert.

I've always been partial to grocery store cupcakes, as they're somehow always impeccably moist, tender, and rich, more so than any homemade or bakery-bought cupcake that I've experienced. Costco offers up a delicious selection of rotating cupcake options, though one such flavor that you're likely to encounter is the classic chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting.

Considering that these chocolate cupcakes have landed on the "buy" list, it's safe to say that they're a hit in my book. Perfectly spongy, impossibly rich, and ultra-decadent thanks to that deep chocolate flavor, the cupcake alone is delicious enough, but that buttercream frosting adds just the right pop of creaminess to make this a bona fide treat. Now, I can't sit here and say this is a product that I'd keep stocked in my kitchen at all times, but it's definitely one of those "once in a while" treats that hits the spot without the need for making cupcakes and frosting from scratch. Whether you need a quick treat for a kid's birthday party or family gathering, this chocolate cupcake pack — which comes with 12 cupcakes, by the way — is a sweet, chocolatey, crowd-pleasing solution.

As someone who loves s'mores likely more than the average person, I'm picky about s'mores-flavored products or s'mores-inspired treats. The beauty of a classic s'more is that it requires but three humble ingredients to make: graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate, so it really shouldn't be all that hard to translate such a simple flavor profile to a different dessert format. Unfortunately, these Kirkland Signature caramel s'mores clusters didn't quite work, tasting more like an overly sweet mess than anything else. 

Considering that these treats are specifically called caramel s'mores clusters, I was definitely expecting a hefty dose of caramel, but I wasn't expecting all caramel. I feel like Costco could have skipped the s'mores part entirely and could have just called these caramel clusters, because any s'mores inspiration got completely lost in all that caramel. The overly sweet caramel flavor was one thing, but the texture was also just all wrong here; way too hard and chewy, and when I did come across a marshmallow, they were super tough to chew through. Altogether, these clusters were way too sweet, not nearly as s'mores-forward as they should have been, and felt much more like a caramel dessert than anything else. So, unless you've got an incredibly strong sweet tooth (and a strong tooth, for that matter) and a particular affinity for mediocre caramel, then this is one Costco treat you can safely skip.

If you're an avid Costco shopper or keep up with all things popular Costco products, then you likely don't even need me to tell you how good the tuxedo chocolate mousse cake is (but I'm going to anyway). Not only is it one of the best cakes in Costco's bakery section, but the tuxedo chocolate mousse cake is a delectable treat in general, making other store-bought cakes look a little bit pathetic in comparison.

The key to this cake's sheer appeal lies in those layers, which consist of chocolate cake, both white and regular chocolate mousse, brownie chunks, and chocolate ganache. I can't sit here and say that this cake isn't super sweet and super chocolatey, but it has enough rich and slightly bitter notes to keep it from delving into too-sweet territory. Unsurprisingly, the cake is also exceptionally moist thanks to all of that mousse, but the actual cake layers help give it structural integrity and keep it from becoming pure mush. Basically, this cake is any chocolate lover's ultimate dream, and when in doubt about which Costco chocolate dessert to purchase, you simply cannot go wrong with the tuxedo mousse cake.

It's a bit of a daunting task to try seven chocolate-heavy desserts or treats all at once, so I broke it up a bit by sampling half on a given day and the other half the next day. I didn't want any desserts to get less consideration than they deserve because I had too much chocolate fatigue, and this process helped ensure that I could give each product the attention it deserved. Of course, this process also made it clear which desserts I naturally gravitated toward, and which ones I wasn't super keen on returning to.

As for determining which of the desserts to recommend and which to avoid, it came down to those that lived up to their chocolatey potential and which ones simply fell short. Those desserts that made it onto the buy list were those that stood out for exceptional chocolate flavor and a nice contrast between the chocolate elements and other flavors in the dessert. Most desserts that made it onto the avoid list were those that just didn't strike me as chocolatey enough, like the s'mores clusters or the ice cream bars. Others simply had a flavor I didn't like much at all, like the triple chocolate muffins.