11 Changes I Wish Sam's Club Bakery Would Make

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A visit to Sam's Club is hardly complete without perusing the bakery aisles. There are plenty of cakes, pies, and other baked goods to tempt you from refrigerator cases, stands, and tables of the bakery section of the store. You're likely to grab a bag of bagels or a carton of gigantic muffins to make breakfasts easier for the week. However, I don't buy as many items as I might if the Sam's Club bakery made a few changes.

The thing is, Sam's Club bakery isn't exciting. I don't get the same thrill from seeing what's available as I do at places like Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Sprouts, or even (to a lesser extent) Walmart. Whereas I've been known to walk out of those other stores with something I didn't intend to buy, that almost never happens when I peruse the Sam's Club bakery. Part of that has to do with the fact that nearly everything comes in such large packages and portions, while the other part of it is that I feel like a lot of the items are just too basic — they don't appeal to people like me, who are far more tempted to try new things. So, today, I'm writing out my wishlist of what I'd prefer to experience in the Sam's Club bakery.

First of all, if I have to commit to buying in bulk, I wish there were more mix-and-match options. There are a couple of ways this could work: allowing a bakery attendant to mix and match or having a self-serve area.

Costco has mix-and-match options with some of its products, like its Danishes and bagels, which could work at Sam's. I'd love to pick only the flavors my family likes and none that they don't. For example, we often buy a variety pack of muffins from Sam's, but only reluctantly finish off the blueberry ones. While we could buy a six-pack each of chocolate and banana nut, that would be far too many muffins to go through before they went bad. That concept would be nice to apply to any bakery pastry, from cookies and bagels to Danishes and conchas.

Even better, it would be nice if there were a self-serve area where you could grab a certain number of pastries to make a custom pastry pack, mixing together everything from croissants to Danishes and bagels. You could either do it on the honor system, or there could be a bakery attendant to add a custom label. You could still buy in bulk to honor the spirit of the wholesale grocery club concept, but you wouldn't be stuck with buying and eating just one type of baked good all week.

While I'm dreaming about a self-serve bakery area at Sam's Club, I might as well wish for smaller portions — even single-serve portions. However, I'm not only thinking of impulse-buy desserts but also portions for smaller families.

The smallest package you'll ever find of anything in the bakery is a six-pack, including items like muffins, fruit tarts, bagels, and hoagie rolls. However, for the most part, you're stuck with larger amounts, like eight conchas, 18 cookies, or a chicken pot pie big enough for a whole family. That's all well and great for the office, a party, or a large family, but not for a small family or individual. I like the idea of being able to buy a six-pack of more items. You can always buy two six-packs if you need more. Granted, if the bakery had a self-serve area, you could get exactly how many you needed, whether that be one, four, six, or 66 of something.

I know Sam's Club is all about the bulk-buying experience, but there are certainly opportunities elsewhere in the store to purchase single-portion items, which I would like to see in the bakery. For example, I'll often buy a small sushi roll and eat it in the food court. So, why couldn't the bakery offer more single-serve items? I like happening upon smaller items in grocery store bakeries, like mini cakes, single-serve cake slices, mousse cups, or singular pastries.

Product size also matters. Packaging tends to be super-sized at Sam's Club for bulk-buying, but not every product needs to be super-sized itself. I'd specifically like to see bite-sized snacks, which have been trending for a while now without really infiltrating the Sam's Club bakery section much.

Sam's Club has embraced snacky, bite-sized products elsewhere in the store, but it's not very prevalent in the bakery beyond Member's Mark naan bites and King's Hawaiian soft pretzel bites. Interestingly, Sam's Club does have two-bite brownies listed online, though not all Sam's Club locations carry them in the actual store. Meanwhile, other grocery stores have embraced snack-sized bakery items, like the two-bite cupcakes I love from Sprouts or the small crunchy chocolate chip cookies you can get from Trader Joe's. One up-and-coming breakfast trend is having mini and snacky breakfast options. While you can find mini frozen quiches in the freezer section, you can't really find any mini breakfast options in the bakery, like mini muffins or mini croissants.

I have to admit I've never bought a custom cake from the Sam's Club bakery because the options just aren't appealing. Even Sam's sister store, Walmart, has far more variety and more enticing designs. So, while I've heard that the cakes taste better at Sam's Club, having limited choices is a deal breaker.

The available designs, even for events like graduation, baby showers, weddings, and anniversaries, are lackluster and offer limited customization options. Granted, if I were just looking for a birthday cake for a kid, I could probably find something passable. However, for themed cakes, the only customization options are choosing between white and chocolate cake and adding a message.

There are some personalized cakes available at the Sam's Club bakery that offer a few more choices. For example, if you start with a blank full sheet cake, you can opt for the cake to be white, chocolate, half and half, or marble. However, your only decoration option is either roses or balloons in four color combos. You also get to choose between white or chocolate buttercreme or whipped icing. Plus, you can add a message in your choice of 18 colors. Whereas other cake bakeries (even Walmart) offer fully customizable cakes with far more options that I wish Sam's Club had, like fun cake flavors, flavored fillings (especially raspberry), different icing colors, recreating your dream cake from a photo, or even screen printing.

Yes, the Sam's Club bakery has croissants and bagels as savory breakfast options. However, as one who prefers savory breakfast items, I've often wished it had more. Granted, most would need to come from the refrigerated case rather than sitting out on the tables, but Sam's Club has a lot of take-and-bake or take-and-heat items throughout the rest of the store. So, why not in the bakery?

Some of the things I'm thinking about are options I've seen other local bakeries offer. For example, Panera has asiago croissant twists and mini breakfast souffles. Several coffee shops and donut shops in my area offer savory breakfast pastries like ham and cheese croissants, breakfast focaccias, and sausage rolls. A personal savory breakfast favorite is a kolache. While some kolaches are simply sausage rolls, others look more like round buns with a variety of fillings inside, from sausage and gravy to a mixture of spinach, artichoke, and cheese. If the Sam's Club bakery wanted to offer something larger, it could always go with a savory ham-and-cheese bear claw or savory scones.

The bagel offerings at Sam's Club are quite limited, with only four varieties available. There are two savory bagel options: plain and everything, and two sweet bagel options: cinnamon raisin and blueberry. Yet, there are so many more possibilities out there.

Even if they're not always available, I'd love to see some different flavors cycle through the bakery from time to time. Some favorites that come to mind in the savory category that other popular bagel places like Panera and Einstein Bros. have include jalapeño cheddar, asiago, sesame, multigrain, onion, poppy seed, or pumpernickel bagels. Then, in the sweet bagel category, there are fun options like apple cinnamon, chocolate chip, cranberry, maple French toast, and cinnamon crunch bagels. I'd be happy if just a few of these cycled through the bakery every now and then to switch things up.

I know I've mentioned it already, but having a mix-and-match option for all these flavors would be kind of amazing. As of now, you're pretty much stuck with six of just one flavor. So, likely only one person in your house or office is getting their favorite bagel at a time.

I'm personally a sucker for creamy desserts like mousses more than pastry and cakey desserts. The creamier it is, the happier I am. Yet, these types of desserts don't exist in the Sam's Club bakery, much to my disappointment. The closest offering is the Members' Mark tiramisu cake.

Even at Walmart, you can find mousse dessert cups in a variety of flavors. At my small Walmart Neighborhood Market, there are a variety of options like the chocolate mousse with cookie crumbles, the cookies 'n cream mousse with cookie pieces, the turtle French-style cheesecake mousse, regular French-style cheesecake mousse, the strawberry French-style cheesecake mousse, and the banana pudding dessert cups. Some of the cheesecake ones are especially popular, with the website boasting that thousands have sold since yesterday. Meanwhile, Whole Foods has options like tiramisu mousse cups and a sea salt caramel panna cotta.

Ideally, if Sam's Club were to carry creamy desserts, they should be available in single-serving sizes, even if they came in a six-pack. Though I think they'd sell well in single-serving sizes as something shoppers could just grab on a whim.

Beyond its special-occasion cakes, the Sam's Club bakery does a few cakes, but not nearly the variety I'd like to see. Lately, I've noticed a couple of new cakes cycling through (a Dubai-style chocolate mousse cake and the strawberry cake), but neither has great reviews. I'd love to see more cakes cycle through since there are so many great cakes out there in the world.

First, let's look at what types of cakes the Sam's Club bakery has. If I get a cake at Sam's Club, it's usually the tuxedo bar cake with chocolate mousse, which is delicious (although I still think Costco makes the best tuxedo cake). I usually skip the Chantilly cream bar cake since it's difficult for anyone to top the Whole Foods version of the Chantilly cake. Other offerings include tres leches cakes, and confetti bar cakes.

There are a variety of cakes I'd love to see. Among Costco's best cakes is a carrot bar cake, which would be a nice addition to the lineup. However, I'd love to see other popular types of cake cycle through, like angel food cake, a black forest cake, red velvet cake, fruit cake, German chocolate cake, Texas sheet cake, or even a hummingbird cake.

When I hear the word "bakery," the first thing that comes to mind is beautiful loaves of fresh-baked bread straight from the oven. However, that's not something I really associate with Sam's Club bakery, although it would be nice if there were more good, fresh bread loaf choices there.

Don't get me wrong. The bakery does have a few bread options, like Member's Mark baguettes, pan Cubano, and sliced sourdough bread. Sadly, the sourdough bread isn't that great, and we usually end up hitting the farmer's market to buy ours instead. Perhaps the thought is that the commercial bread lineup provides everything else shoppers might want? It offers varieties like white, multigrain, honey wheat, and cinnamon raisin. And we usually leave the store with some Dave's Killer Bread. However, what I'd be most interested in purchasing from the Sam's Club bakery would be more interesting loaves like whole-grain seed bread, pumpernickel, asiago bread, focaccia, challah, Japanese milk bread, or Italian herb bread. Imagine going to the Sam's Club bakery and actually being excited to see what's in the bread lineup. But, alas.

One of the best things you can get from the Sam's Club food court is the pizza. Once you start craving that cheese, it's hard to resist when you're shopping in the Club. However, if you're not doing your Sam's Club shopping at meal time, you probably aren't getting the pizza. This is why I'd love to see a version of Sam's delicious food court pizza available as a take-and-bake option from the bakery. Then it would be available to be freshly baked on my schedule when I'm ready for it at home.

If you're a Plus member and take advantage of the early shopping hours or even come during the first regular Club hour of the day, the cafe isn't open yet, which means that you can't get pizza even if we wanted to have it for breakfast. Sure, there are frozen pizzas in the pizza section at Sam's Club, but only one brand (Red Baron) is among the frozen brands that taste remotely like delivery. A take-and-bake option would help here, especially if you live farther away and don't want to drive all the way out in rush-hour traffic to get a freshly made Sam's Club pizza for pizza night.

Scones are oddly missing from the Sam's Club bakery lineup. Walmart has them, so why not Sam's Club? Whether sweet or savory, they offer a different option for those looking for breakfast foods in the bakery section. The best scones I've had from local bakeries have been downright crave-worthy.

Scones feel like a middle-ground breakfast item since they tend to have less fat and sugar than some other options. For example, most sweet scones I've had from bakeries haven't been nearly as sweet as the bakery's muffins or other sweet breakfast pastries. Plus, they're also not as fat-laden as a biscuit either. I've seen all sorts of flavors that might be possible from chocolate chip, cinnamon, or blueberry to blueberry lemon or cranberry orange. I wouldn't be sad to see some less traditional flavors like carrot cake or coconut cream show up, either. Some savory versions might work as well, especially if they were something like bacon, cheddar, and chive or ham and cheese.