The Worst Aldi Bakery Find Looks Better Than It Tastes
Aldi is the grocery store you go to for deals, without giving up on the quality of the food. The hyper-efficient store may not look like much on the inside with most of its products displayed in the boxes they're shipped in, but down those disheveled aisles are some real hidden snack gems. When it comes to the bakery department, we'd expect more of the same. To find out if our expectations lined up with reality, our reviewer tried 11 different Aldi bakery items and ranked them. The baked good that came in last looked great, but didn't quite live up to its promise: the birthday cake donut.
Our reviewer used their baking background to judge each item on its smell, taste, texture, and price. They tasted only the fresh baked goods, skipping anything frozen or boxed. In the end, nothing on the list offended our reviewer. This last-place item's ranking came down to a matter of taste. The reviewer found these donuts to be sickeningly sweet, with a glaze that overpowered the "soft, cakey" interior. The look and smell were spot on, ready to take you back to your childhood birthdays like the madeleine from Proust or the ratatouille from Remy the rat. If you have a sweet tooth that is hard to blow out, then this donut may be for you!
Does the internet agree that these are the worst Aldi donuts?
Responses online are mixed. Most commenters on a Facebook post liked them, with phrases like "SOOOOO good!" and "my new ALL-TIME favorite donut" thrown around. One did feel they were too dry. Elsewhere, however, the responses are more mixed. One TikTok creator titled their video "Aldi has birthday cake donuts and they're ok!" They gave them a 6 out of 10. Another TikTok reviewer was more brutal, saying they were going to send the rest to someone they know who doesn't have good taste buds. They gave the donuts a 2 out of 10, calling them not the worst they've ever had, but "giving artificial."
The donuts may be free of synthetic colors, which have no taste, but they are naturally and artificially flavored. This is most likely what the last TikTok reviewer was picking up on. If you are on the hunt for a grocery-store baked good, try Lidl. Shoppers are convinced that Lidl has better produce than Aldi, and part of the supermarket chain's approach to creating a pleasant shopping experience is to stack fresh produce up front and bake pastries in house.