6 Costco Bakery Items Worth Buying And 5 To Avoid

When my family first picked up a Costco membership, we did a few thorough walks through the store, noting items we wanted and frequently purchased to help better fine-tune our grocery shopping. During these walks, we very quickly discovered the Costco bakery, but figured it couldn't be much different from a regular grocery store's bakery, but we were wholly mistaken. The goodies you'll find in the Costco bakery are some of the best reasons to become a Costco member.

Of course, no baker (not even Costco's) is perfect, and since the time I've started shopping at Costco, I've stumbled upon several bakery items that are simply better left unbought. These recommendations are largely based on my own tasting experiences with additional support from Costco shoppers from sites like Reddit. One of my best tips for first-time Costco members is to shop the bakery. In fact, the goodies you'll find in the Costco bakery are some of the best reasons to become a Costco member. So, it's time to get your grocery list out and plan your next Costco bakery stop with a few of these must-buy items.

Costco is no stranger to Tiramisu cake, so perhaps it's no surprise that the very first dessert item we grabbed from Costco was a spin on the classic with the Tiramisu Cheesecake. At the time, we were visiting my parents, so we experienced this dessert for the first time together. Little did we know that it's a seasonal item that only crops up in the spring. With layers of crust, cheesecake, and tiramisu goodness, this dessert is creamy and perfectly coffee-tasting. It's easily my favorite cheesecake offering from Costco.

You'll want to be sure you have a few people on hand to eat the cheesecake because it is definitely on the larger side of desserts. Plus, it's a heavy one. Cut yourself a fairly small piece so as not to waste more than you're realistically able to eat. When selecting your tiramisu cheesecake in the store, choose one generously sprinkled with that cocoa powder. The thorough coating of cocoa powder won't feel overwhelming or overly dusty, but if there isn't enough, you will definitely notice its absence.

To find your cheesecake in Costco, look in the refrigerated cases in the bakery. Often, I find them in the large stand-up cases, but the smaller displays that open from the top often stock them too. During tiramisu cheesecake season, you'll find that they can sell out quickly, so it's worth it to make your shopping trip earlier in the day if you're concerned about missing out. Or, as user u3koyz encouraged on Reddit, "Don't walk, run! They are back."

As positive as my first experience was with a Costco dessert, the second was less promising. My standard had been set high, and the Caramel Tres Leches Bar Cake wasn't up to delivering in the same way. Though some enjoy the cake, I must agree with Reddit user Ittrsfrmlnrrgby who stated, "It's not caramelly enough. The mousse filling should be twice as flavored."

The cake looks promising with that caramel gooey-looking top layer. However, the rest of the cake is far too mushy and missing out on a great deal of flavor. Though the custard is supposed to be caramel-flavored too, it really doesn't come through at all. I also found it didn't age particularly well in the refrigerator. The longer it sits, the mushier it gets. Like most of the treats from Costco, they're sized to feed a crowd, so you'll likely have leftovers. Not being able to count on the dessert to make it long in your refrigerator feels like a waste of money and definitely forces you to time your purchases out just right for the best possible experience. My advice is to just skip this one. If you want a great bar cake, go for the tuxedo cake, a favorite Costco bakery item that is a luxurious year-round find.

Meet my newest Costco bakery obsession: Caramelized Blueberry Cheesecake Croissants. I picked these up on a whim on our weekly trip to Costco, and they quickly became a must-have on our visits. When I tried them, they had apparently been on a couple of weeks' trial period to gauge popularity, but they had disappeared by the time I went looking for them again. For a couple of weeks, they were simply not there, then they appeared again and have stuck around for months.

Costco's Caramelized Blueberry Cheesecake Croissants are circular, wrapped croissants with a layer of cream cheese and blueberry-type filling, covered in a buttery crumble with a caramelized bottom. They might be sticky, but at least the clean-up is delicious. You purchase them in packs of six, and while that's not nearly enough to make it through the week in my house, it's probably the perfect number so that they don't go too gooey in the plastic container. Though I never heated mine up, Reddit contributor Sharp_Athlete_6847 recommends heating them up in your air fryer for two minutes. I imagine this little trick would only make them even better. If you see these in your store, don't pass them up.

Unfortunately, not every breakfast pastry at Costco is a win. The Strawberry Rhubarb Turnover seems appetizing, but compared to the croissants, it's an easy skip. These pastries are croissant-like dough with a filling of strawberry and rhubarb. Over the top, you get a holey topper that's bound to trigger anyone with trypophobia.

The flavor itself isn't the issue. In this case, it's the texture. The pastry feels far too soft and not flaky like it should. RobotMaster1 on Reddit describes it as being "soggy without being moist" and "like they were raw but also fully cooked." The turnovers sit in this uncomfortable middle ground area that feels like a poor representation of the types of pastries you can typically expect to get at Costco. Still, if you love strawberries and rhubarb and are willing to look past the obvious texture concerns, these could very well be a win for you. Unfortunately for me, I ate only one turnover before calling it quits for the remaining pastries.

Costco's carrot cake is the stuff your Easter dreams are made of. It pops up right around Easter, sticks around for far too short a time, then disappears, leaving heartbroken Costco bakery lovers in its moist, tangy, spongy wake.

Costco sells carrot cake in a few different varieties. I have seen it in cupcakes and circular cakes, but my favorite way to get carrot cake is in the bar form. The bar version presents so nicely on the dessert table, and you can clearly see the different layers of carrot cake and cream cheese piled on top of each other. Not to mention, it makes serving ultra easy when you can just cut off a large slice of the cake for your dessert. If you happen to be someone who likes a really moist carrot cake with visible pieces of carrots and even raisins, you're going to especially enjoy this carrot cake. While some desserts don't quite hold up in the refrigerator for long, these carrot cakes do a nice job, holding their structure and remaining the perfect texture. Speaking from my (abundant) carrot cake-loving experience, it's the perfect pairing to your Easter ham leftovers.

It's really hard for me to admit that I didn't like a particular cheesecake. However, the strawberry cheesecake at Costco smothers and hides all of the parts that are absolutely delicious about the regular cheesecake. The strawberry cheesecake looks plenty appetizing. It has an abundance of strawberry jam all over the top of it with piped edges of frosting. There's a graham cracker crust that's very enjoyable and a whole bunch of cream cheese. No individual item is not enjoyable. It's a combination of all of them, and the ratio, that is the real issue.

Quite simply, this is a case of having too much of a good thing. It's trying to be too sweet, and the contrasting flavors don't work for the dessert. Though the tiramisu cheesecake is a whole lot, the balance of it is perfect. Strawberry cheesecake is also a whole lot, but the individual parts really don't even themselves out to make for a delicious cheesecake. There's a reason that you typically only see a light drizzle of fruity flavors on top of a slice of cheesecake, and that's because too much sweet fruit can ruin an otherwise perfect cheesecake.

Oddly enough, my family tried the strawberry cheesecake before we gave the regular cheesecake a try. Overwhelming as the strawberry was in the cheesecake, we imagined that the basic cheesecake would have a much better balance, and it did. Plus, the strawberry cheesecake is more of a seasonal offering, but you can find a regular cheesecake anytime of the year.

If you like a simple cheesecake as I do, this is going to be an absolute delight. It's got a graham cracker crust with the ideal balance of sweetness and tartness in the actual cheesecake. It's the kind of cheesecake that would love a drizzle of chocolate and caramel or fruit, but it doesn't need a whole lot extra to be simply delicious. If you've tried the strawberry cheesecake before the regular cheesecake, as I did, you might be surprised just how much you like the stripped-down version.

In the bakery, I often find that if I like one type of item, I enjoy items similar to that one type of item. Unfortunately, there are exceptions to this rule, the strawberry cheesecake being one. Another such exception is the rosemary Parmesan cheese loaf. Although I absolutely adore the rustic Italian loaf that the Costco bakery offers throughout the year, the rosemary Parmesan cheese loaf simply didn't come close to the quality of the rustic Italian loaf.

Although I enjoy both rosemary and Parmesan flavors, paired together in this bread, there was quite an imbalance too heavily in the rosemary side of things in order for it to be enjoyable. Rather than tasting only slightly earthy with that perfectly salty Parmesan bite, it was overly herbalicious to the point that I felt like I was just eating rosemary-flavored bread. I purchased it as a crunchy bread to enjoy with soup, but the overwhelming flavor of the rosemary did the soup no favors either. In the future, I will stay away from the rosemary Parmesan cheese loaf and just stick with the rustic Italian loaf, and I recommend you do the same, especially if you don't like your bread overly herb-flavored.

There are plenty of ways Costco makes holiday shopping easier. New items are added to the store nearly weekly, and in nearly every aisle, you'll find items to add to your holiday traditions. One of my favorite Costco holiday foods you simply must pick up during the season is the cranberry walnut loaf.

On the surface, it just doesn't look like much, but in reality, the bread is moist and loaded with cranberries, walnuts, and all kinds of Christmas goodness. It's the perfect base for a variety of appetizers you might serve during the holiday season, but I enjoyed simply warming some up and slathering butter on top. It's perfect cubed up or in slices. If you really wanted to dig in, tearing off a hunk of the loaf certainly wouldn't be looked down upon in my house. The Reddit netizens absolutely agree. Beautiful-Program428 calls it "pure crack" and recommends toasting it up with a bit of butter and honey. You can even get creative with your holiday sandwiches with this tempting loaf, like iamjustatourist with their recommendation to "Slice, spread with pesto, add sliced rotisserie chicken, add cheese and press like a panini. Soooooo good!"

In the fall, it seems you can't go down any aisle of a grocery store without seeing something flavored with pumpkin spice. At Costco, it's much the same, and unsurprisingly, it stretches into the bakery. One such item, the pumpkin spice bagels, looks promising, but they are something of a letdown to pumpkin spice lovers.

Though Costco has some pretty tasty bagels, with French toast being a popular and hard-to-find favorite, the pumpkin spice bagels leave something to be desired. I must agree with Reddit user MuiOne, who called the flavoring artificial. As delicious as the pumpkin pie is from Costco, seeing that the pumpkin spice bagels are such a letdown with a deeply artificial flavor makes them one of the items you'll definitely want to avoid in the bakery. Have a pumpkin craving that just won't quit? Grab yourself one of the massive pumpkin pies from the bakery instead.

Although the pumpkin spice bagels are nothing I crave, the lemon blueberry loaf is one of the most perfect breakfast breads out there, let alone sitting in the Costco bakery. This sweet bread has flavors of lemon with plentiful blueberries, and even a drizzle to really take it to the next level. It's become something of a hyped-up, beloved item that Reddit reviewers call dangerously good and moist.

I think it's the perfect breakfast bread to slice off a chunk and enjoy it with coffee in the morning. Warming it up in the microwave for just a few seconds with a little extra butter on top takes it from good to great. The balance of flavors is ideal, with neither the blueberry nor the lemon peeking out in front of the other one, so it doesn't taste overly tart or like basic blueberry. Unfortunately, it's one of those seasonal items that isn't around all year, so you'll definitely need to keep an eye out for it around the spring and early summer months. Still, it's one of those Costco items under $10 that always makes its way into my cart.

I've spent a fair amount of time scouring the Costco bakery. In that time, I've brought plenty of treats back to the cart to enjoy at home. Through this extensive, delicious research, I am able to share my favorite, must-purchase bakery items, as well as those that I leave on the shelf and avoid. To be a great Costco bakery item, first and foremost, the taste needs to be enjoyable. Texture is also very important and should be appropriate for each item. That is, the bakery items should be moist when necessary or crispy when appropriate. When items don't meet those expectations, they are the ones that I will avoid in the future, and I recommend you do the same.