11 Great Value Desserts Ranked From Worst To Best

Great Value, Walmart's house brand, has always offered a wide variety of affordable desserts, and recently introduced some new sweet treats to its lineup. While its offerings always live up to the name's promise when it comes to price, they can be hit or miss in terms of quality. When you find a Great Value gem, though, it can feel like hitting the jackpot, so it's always worth exploring the options — in fact, we recently crowned Great Value as the best in-store private label.

Whether you're a fruit lover or a chocolate fanatic, the brand has plenty of meal-finishing sweets to choose from. In an attempt to take care of the guesswork for you, I've selected a variety of Great Value's desserts, including pies, cakes, pastries, and ice creams, to find out which are worth bringing home and which are better left on the shelf. All of these are from the frozen section, so don't be afraid to stock up on the winners if your freezer space allows. Here's how they all stack up in terms of quality and value, and most importantly, deliciousness.

I'm not exactly sure where things went wrong with Great Value's banana pudding bar, but this dessert was a mess. This bar takes two hours to thaw — twice as long as the other dessert bars, and just as long as the full-sized desserts I tried — and it's really not worth the wait. Somehow parts of the center remained icy and hard, even after I'd given it more than enough time and had tasted through every other dessert on this list more than once. That was the first issue, which provided a pretty big logistical hurdle, but it only went downhill from there. 

When I was finally able to put together a reasonably thawed bite, I could barely choke it down. The banana pudding had pockets of banana purée with a gooey, slimy texture, the cake was super dense and chewy, and the banana flavor had an unpleasant chalky aftertaste that lingered. The only inoffensive part was the topping, a layer of cream mousse covered in caramel and white chocolate curls. This is one of Great Value's new dessert options, and I think it needed a bit more time in development.

I love butter, I love pecans, and I love ice cream. It's hard to believe that those three things could come together in a way that filled me with disappointment rather than glee, but here we are. I should say, Great Value's butter pecan ice cream isn't terrible by any means, but it just didn't come together like other versions of this flavor that I've enjoyed the heck out of in the past.

Let's start with the ice cream itself. It's creamy and soft, yes, but absolutely way too sweet, at least for my palate. That hyper-sweetness may have been properly balanced by nutty, earthy pecans, but there simply weren't enough nuts to get that combination. The pecans varied greatly in size, which isn't necessarily a huge problem, but because there are so few of them, you never knew what to expect from each bite. They were also rather soft, even for pecans, so they didn't offer much in the way of textural contrast to the ice cream. With such a simple ice cream recipe as butter pecan, each ingredient needs to shine, and none of these elements was done quite right, leaving this ice cream underwhelming overall.

This was another subpar entry in the Great Value ice cream category. Rocky road is a classic flavor, involving a chocolate ice cream base, roasted almonds, and swirls of marshmallow, and it's seen countless variations from every ice cream brand in the last century. While this one has all three major elements of the style, it falls short of being an impressive entry in the rocky road canon for a few reasons.

The best part of Great Value's version of rocky road was the chocolate ice cream itself. It had a deep, rich chocolate flavor that wasn't cloyingly sweet, and had a lovely creamy texture. The other two elements, however, detracted from the ice cream rather than enhancing it, and I found myself eating around them. The almonds are supposedly coated in chocolate, according to the item's description, but they were chopped so small they were basically grains of sand. I detected no chocolate coating, although I suppose it could have been there before the nuts were pulverized. When I got a spoonful that included a bit of marshmallow, it added a pleasantly nostalgic sweetness to the chocolate, but more often it came in a big burst of sugar that overwhelmed everything else. This rocky road is a little too rocky to work.

One of the simplest desserts from Great Value, this double chocolate bar consists of just two elements: Cake and frosting. Like the other dessert bars, it comes frozen. Unlike the others, there are two package directions, one for simply thawing it, and one for warming it slightly in the microwave. I tried both, which led to a very interesting discovery. In each preparation, only one of the two elements worked, while the other one fell short. This dessert created a paradoxical mental puzzle that's inhabited my mind ever since I tasted it, which is honestly the most interesting thing about it.

The cake, nothing fancy, simple chocolate, was too dense and dry after it thawed. The frosting, however, was absolutely heavenly, like a slightly melty ganache, rich and semi-sweet and silky. The problem here was that the cake-to-frosting ratio was way off, with barely a paper's width of that beautiful frosting on top of a brick of cake. I thought things might even out with a brief stint in the microwave. That warmth improved the cake's texture significantly — though it was still dense, it now had a steamy moistness to it — but once the frosting melted, it lost its silkiness and became runny. Somewhere, I imagine there's a world in which this dessert bar's two pieces come together in perfect harmony, but sadly, it's not this one.

The Chocolate Crème Pie from Great Value is a case of high highs and low lows, which is a shame because the main star of this dessert — the chocolate mousse filling — is pretty darn good. It held its shape well while maintaining a silken, airy texture and boasted a lusciously creamy chocolate flavor. It was most of what surrounded this filling that brought this pie down in the standings. The crust wasn't bad, made from crumbled chocolate cookies, although it was a little tough and cracked unevenly when I tried to slice it, and had a slightly dry and dusty mouthfeel. Still, if it were just the crust and the chocolate, this would've been a fine dessert.

There were two layers of whipped cream, one between the chocolate and the crust, and the other piped generously around the perimeter of the top. This cream was surprisingly flavorless, and the texture of the top layer, while it looked fluffy and light, was instead gloopy and flat. There was a ribbon of chocolate drizzled on top that looked like sauce but was, in fact, solid and hard long after the thaw. A sprinkling of mini chocolate chips in the center of the pie added some nice texture and enhanced the filling's flavor, but going from frozen to room temperature made the chips sweaty, which added some unwanted drops of moisture to the top. The chocolate filling almost makes this worthwhile, but everything else drags it down.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream can be a transcendently fresh variant of a classic flavor, or it can be a disjointed and confusing toothpaste-flavored jumble. Great Value ice creams are made by Wells Dairy, and this version of it falls somewhere in between. As with the other flavors, the ice cream itself had a soft and creamy texture. The large chunks of chocolate added a welcome richness and crunch, although I wished there were more of them.

The problem was the mint. If you've ever had real mint ice cream, you'll be able to tell that this is very obviously made with peppermint extract, and lots of it. There was no subtlety or nuance to this flavor. Instead, it was overpowering in an artificial way, and that excess was not helped by the bright neon green color from food dyes. I'm not anti-mint chip as a flavor, and I've tried many excellent iterations from other brands that I've loved. It's so important to get the mint element right with this style of ice cream, though, and Great Value sadly misses that mark.

Walmart's two flavors of apple blossoms, which are basically like mini open-faced pies, are recent additions to their dessert lineup — a pastry base, folded around a pocket of fruit filling in a shape vaguely resembling flower petals. This version contains a mélange of glazed berries and chopped bits of apple. Per the instructions, I heated these up in the oven, though it took about five minutes longer than the package suggested to get the heat all the way to the center.

While the pastry quality left something to be desired, it served its purpose fairly well, holding the generous amount of filling together without crumbling or tearing. It's described as flaky on the box, but with the exception of the folded top edges, I didn't find that to be particularly true. The interior of the crust was a tad soggy, and the exterior, especially the bottom, was just solid enough but not crisp. It did have a lovely buttery flavor, however, and I enjoyed the crunchy crystals of sugar scattered over the top. The filling is really the main event here, a flavorful combination of sweet and tart, with brambly blackberries and zesty raspberries stealing the show. The apples get lost in all the berry action, though, which makes me wonder why they're even included.  

It was tough to separate the two Great Value blossom flavors, as they were both delightful in many ways, but I felt that the caramel apple flavor did a better job showcasing its main ingredient. While this blossom suffered the same pastry issues as its berry counterpart, with an overall lack of flakiness and uneven baking, its filling was a beautifully balanced celebration of autumnal flavors. One bite had me giddily excited for fall.

Cinnamon-dusted chunks of apple swam in a light caramel glaze, and what's impressive was the crisp texture they were able to maintain, which provides a nice snappiness to what could have been an overly gooey, uninteresting filling. The caramel here was understated and played a supporting role to the apples, bringing a subtlety to this dessert that I wasn't expecting. It tasted rich and decadent in one sense, but it was light and bright enough to keep it from teetering into cloying territory, thanks to the natural tartness of the Northern Spy apples, which are considered one of the best apple varieties for baking. I'm not sure how much I'll want to eat this in spring and summer, but for fall and winter, this is a winner.

The Great Value ice cream that finally wowed me was its peanut butter cup flavor. Of all the cartons I picked up, this is the only one I'll eagerly go back for, especially considering how much cheaper it is than most other ice cream brands. 

Everything about this flavor worked. I appreciated that I didn't have to pick and search for ingredients to get a perfect bite — there was such an abundance of chopped peanut butter cups and swirls of peanut butter and fudge that I couldn't avoid them if you tried. There was no reason to try, though, because each element was delicious. The creamy texture and soft but present vanilla flavor of the base ice cream provided an excellent backdrop for the smooth peanut butter and rich chocolate swirls, and there were plenty of cup bits to add satisfying pops of extra flavor and crunch. 

The sugar level here is nicely calibrated so you don't feel overwhelmed, but it'll still satisfy your sweet tooth. If ice cream is your go-to dessert, Great Value's peanut butter cup flavor should be on your shopping list. There were just a couple of non-ice cream options that I enjoyed a bit more.

Cheesecake is one of those desserts that seems deceptively simple: A creamy filling, a crisp graham cracker crust, and that's it. If one of those elements goes sideways, though, it can be a ruinous experience. Take it from me — as a young aspiring baker, I've ruined my fair share. I can now throw one together from scratch with confidence, but I'm never against saving myself some work by grabbing a store-bought version. Walmart's Great Value whipped cheesecake may just be my new go-to when that mood strikes. It's not perfect, but for under $6, it's incredibly impressive.

While some cheesecakes can be overly dense, the whipped filling here is exactly the opposite. Despite its ethereal, cloud-like airiness, it maintains its shape surprisingly well. Rather than melting in your mouth, I would say it's more like it flutters across your tongue. The filling's delicate texture is tethered to earth by a rich intensity of flavor that starts sweet and milky before finishing with a tart tang that just verges on sour before mellowing out. The crust is what keeps this cheesecake from gold medal contention. While it's got a great buttery, toasty flavor, it's not structurally sound enough to survive the thaw intact — in fact, the moment I cut into the frozen cheesecake to thaw out a smaller piece, the entire side of the crust broke from the base and fell apart. Even so, this inexpensive, convenient, and delicious cheesecake is more than worth a purchase.

The Great Value strawberry shortcake dessert bar had me delighted from the jump. Of all of the bar varieties, this looked the most like something you'd find in a patisserie's case. Its bright and appealing appearance isn't the only thing going for it, thankfully. Flavor and texture-wise, this dessert bar delivers in every way. My only complaint is that I didn't want to stop eating it, and the two bars in the package disappeared too quickly. Next time I know to grab more than one box, which, at around $3 each, is definitely doable.

The construction of this bar is well thought out, with the ratios of each layer working in perfect balance. Two white cakes sandwich a generous, airy layer of vanilla whipped cream with pockets of intensely rich, ripe strawberry purée. Atop the cake are two paper-thin layers of icing and a strawberry sauce with a jelly-like consistency that's absolutely brimming with pure strawberry flavor. On top of that is a snowfall of white chocolate flakes. The interplay of al of these layers creates a creamy, fruity, rich yet delicate version of strawberry shortcake that's just as good as — dare I say, maybe even better than — the classic strawberry shortcake that inspired it.

To select which desserts to include, I started with the new additions to the Great Value lineup, and then added some popular classics. I tried to include a wide variety of dessert types to compare. Once chosen, I prepared each according to package directions if necessary. For the two larger desserts, the cheesecake and the pie, I followed the instructions for thawing a sliced portion of each one. For the ice creams, I let them sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before spooning them into a dish with a warm ice cream scooper.

To rank each dessert, I looked at a combination of attributes. Flavor and texture were first and foremost, while ease of preparation and value all came into play. I also judged each based on comparisons to other similar desserts I've had in the past, to assess how good an example of that flavor or style they turned out to be.