Frozen Cakes Made With The Highest And Lowest Quality Ingredients

In our modern world of sheer convenience, most foods have had a frozen makeover — even freshly baked ones like cakes. Frozen baked goods have been steadily on the rise in popularity in recent years, with over 100 million Americans consuming sweet frozen bakery items in 2020 (per Statista). As more people realize that frozen cakes offer convenience and deliciousness at a reasonable cost, manufacturers have responded by increasing their output. However, more options can often mean lower quality, and in some cases, food companies have opted to fill their cakes with ingredients that you'd likely rather avoid. Additives, emulsifiers, artificial food colorings, and preservatives can often be standard-issue in these cakes, and while they're all added to improve flavor and texture, they can leave customers feeling a little confused about what they just ate.

Luckily, it's not all bad news. There are also a lot of frozen cakes out there that avoid these things as much as possible, and instead have an ingredients list full of recognizable, non-GMO items. We're aware that you probably don't have much time to scour the shelves for the best and worst of the bunch. So, we've done the hard work for you. ‌

Many supermarkets have their own premium brand which offers a touch of extra luxury and quality to customers. Kroger is no different, with its Private Selection line giving you top-shelf-caliber food at a pretty good price. Its Chocolate Ganache Lava Cakes pair that luxuriousness with "authentic ingredients," as promised on the back of the box. There's no sign of any artificial flavors or colors in this cake, and instead it gets its taste from cocoa powder, semi-sweet chocolate, natural flavors, and a heck of a lot of sugar. The latter is listed as the first ingredient here, and it shows — each serving has a whopping 51 grams of added sugar — but hey, we're not judging.

Kroger's Private Selection Chocolate Ganache Lava Cakes also use real eggs and butter, with the butter a pleasingly simple concoction of cream and salt. Bleached enriched wheat flour makes up the bulk of this cake, and we're pleased to see that it delivers a hefty punch of iron, supplying half of your daily value. These frozen cakes are a little more expensive than most, but you'll be rewarded with a quality dessert.

Ice cream cake, with its surprisingly mysterious origins, is perhaps the ultimate frozen cake, and gives you the best of both worlds: Instead of having to spoon ice cream onto your plate next to your cake, you can have the two together. However, you probably won't enjoy Carvel's offering very much once you know what's inside it. Carvel's Lil' Love Ice Cream Cake is certainly a visual delight, with vibrant blue piping around its edges and multicolored sprinkles. Those lurid colors are unfortunately created by a host of food dyes, including Red 3 and 40, Yellow 5 and 6, and Blue 1, amongst others.

These dyes have long had a controversial standing in the food industry, particularly for their potential effects on kids. Yellow 5, also known as tartrazine, was found in a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics to increase irritability and restlessness in some children. Some food dyes (including tartrazine) have been associated with allergic reactions. Aside from all of this, the presence of food dyes in frozen cakes like this one indicates that the manufacturer is taking an easy approach to producing delicious-looking desserts — and other ingredients in Carvel's cake, like its multiple additives and emulsifiers, seem to indicate the same.

Maybe it's a sign of the times we live in and what we expect from our food, but it's fair to say that most of us probably don't assume that frozen chocolate cupcakes are made with quality ingredients. Luckily, Abe's is changing that preconception. This vegan baked goods producer started its journey catering to the founders' son's dietary needs and potential allergic triggers, and since then has worked to keep its products "School Friendly," and use only the best ingredients.

This is pretty clear when you look at its Frozen Chocolate Cupcakes. These tasty-looking treats are made with non-GMO ingredients and don't have any artificial food dyes or flavors in sight. Instead of regular milk, these cupcakes are made with organic rice milk, as well as sustainable palm oil and natural vanilla. There are no mono diglycerides, no titanium oxide, and they're vegan and allergen-friendly. As a bonus to its quality ingredients, the company also clearly cares about the environment, flagging a reduction of plastic in its packaging. Oh, and did we mention that they taste good, too?

Almost everyone's had food from Pepperidge Farm; the brand is everywhere. We're pretty willing to bet, though, that you won't find many of the ingredients in its Frozen Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake growing on a regular farm — or if you did, you likely wouldn't want them. The back of this frozen cake's packaging conspicuously claims that it's made using "bioengineered food ingredients," with several of its ingredients coming from genetically modified crops. These crops are used because they allow farmers to use less pesticides and lose fewer plants, so from a cost perspective they make sense. Because these types of crops are relatively new, though, there's a lack of long-term research about their impact.

However, it's not just these ingredients that are the issue here: It's the sheer number of additives, preservatives, and emulsifiers, which all seem to indicate that Pepperidge Farm is plowing as many ingredients as possible into its cake. The common (and controversial) high fructose corn syrup also shows up, appearing early on in its ingredients list. All of these items may make it tasty and freezer-safe, but you're better off going elsewhere. ‌

Katz Bakery is pretty refreshing in its honesty. The gluten-free baked goods manufacturer openly acknowledges that leaving preservatives out of its food makes things tougher on its website. This is kinda why we admire its choice to remove them from its frozen cakes, and especially its Heavenly Vanilla Créme Cakes, even more. These cakes are a dead ringer for Twinkies (which you can actually make at home). However, unlike the classic baked goods, which are made with a host of preservatives and additives, Katz's version has an all-natural ingredients list. We recognize pretty much every ingredient that goes into these cakes, and we have most of them sitting around in our kitchen.

This modest ingredients list allows Katz to focus on getting each one just right. The only item here that might potentially raise an eyebrow is xanthan gum, which is included to stabilize and emulsify the cake and its filling. However, it's worth remembering that xanthan gum is a natural vegetarian additive derived from bacteria. It's commonly used in gluten-free baking, where it's used to help cakes come together and rise more effectively.

Sara Lee products sit in pretty much every supermarket freezer across the land. All of that availability has to come at a price, though — and that price is the quality of its ingredients. Its Butter Flavored Streusel Coffee Cake may have butter in it, but we're not exactly sure how much. Instead, the cake seems to get its buttery notes from "natural butter flavor" or "lipolyzed butter oil." While butter is listed on the ingredients list, it's far from the primary fat, which appears to be margarine. Hardly the luxury you want from a cake like this, right?

Elsewhere, this cake uses artificial flavors, and an artificial caramel color to give it a golden hue. It also throws high fructose corn syrup into the mix, appearing on the ingredients list before normal sugar does. Plus, this cake includes emulsifiers like mono diglycerides, which help to improve its texture. Crucially, all of these ingredients are totally fine to use, but let's be real: They're hardly going to add up to the best-tasting cake, are they?

You can always rely on Trader Joe's to make an effort with its ingredients. The retailer prides itself on never using artificial flavors or preservatives or GMO items in its private label products, and instead focuses on using quality ingredients that deliver big flavor. Its Lemon Ginger Cheesecake is the proof in the pudding (if you'll excuse the pun). This frozen cheesecake puts natural, recognizable ingredients front and center, with cream cheese, lemon filling colored with turmeric, eggs, sour cream, and a graham crumb making up a large proportion of it. It also throws some unsalted butter and crystallized ginger into the mix, instead of resorting to artificial or cheaper ingredients to replicate these flavors.

We're also pleased to see that there are none of the usual suspects in the ingredients list that are used to preserve food. It's worth remembering that frozen cakes often just don't need these preservatives: The very fact that they're frozen keeps them safe to eat. We're pleased that TJ's understands this, and instead focuses on delivering as much flavor as possible through good ingredients.

Anyone who's ever eaten at The Cheesecake Factory will know how flavorful its food is (and how big its portions are). Have you ever stopped to wonder what's in its flagship cheesecakes, though? Well, if you grab one of its Frozen Vanilla Cheesecakes, you might just find out that its ingredients aren't quite what you'd like. Perhaps the biggest shock here is that this vanilla cheesecake doesn't use real vanilla, and instead opts for an artificial vanilla flavor — which is much cheaper, but tends not to taste as good. Additionally, artificial vanilla may have an unexpected key ingredient in it.

As well as this, its buttery vanilla graham crumb doesn't have any butter in it, and instead uses a natural butter vanilla flavor to give it a rich taste. Instead, it uses margarine as a fat. It's also unclear as to whether the E160a beta-carotene in the ingredients, that colors the cake, is from a natural or synthetic source. This cake may look like the restaurant version, but in our opinion, you should just make your own vanilla cheesecake at home. It'll probably taste way better.

Don't let the ingredients list on this cake fool you. At first glance, it looks pretty overwhelming, which could lead you to believe that Abe's is trying to cram as many items into its Frozen Coffee Cake as possible to make it taste good. Things start to look a little better when you realize that ingredients are being listed for ingredients (meaning the company is being super transparent about what goes into its cakes), and when you strip it back, all of these additions are natural, non-GMO, and vegan.

When you compare it to other coffee cakes on the market, which are crammed with modified ingredients and artificial flavors, it's clear that Abe's is trying to keep its product as high-quality as possible. It's also nice to see a combination of alternative flours making up this cake, like sorghum flour, derived from the antioxidant-rich grain. It's also noticeable that Abe's doesn't stuff its cake with the unnecessary amounts of sugar, fat, and sodium needed to mask lower-quality ingredients, making this a more nutritious option.

Lemon pound cake, like all pound cakes, should be simple. With a few key ingredients making up this easy-to-make cake, all you need is a few extras to complete it and you've got something delicious on your hands. Well, Sara Lee clearly didn't get the memo. Its Lemon Pound Cake's ingredients list is a sight to behold, with a host of additives, emulsifiers, and gums that appear to be bulking out this cake, instead of the manufacturer focusing on getting just a few things right.

It's also interesting to note that butter, which is such a key ingredient in classic pound cake, takes a backseat here. It's certainly in the ingredients list, but it appears after soybean oil. This oil is prized by food producers for its cost-effectiveness, and it's hard to escape the feeling that Sara Lee is cutting corners (and saving money) by mixing its butter with this alternative fat. Buying this cake may be more convenient than making your own, but honestly? It's not that hard to do. You'll get a way better flavor, and much better-quality ingredients, by sticking to the homemade version.

It's kinda fair to assume that own-brand supermarket items aren't going to have the best quality ingredients — which is why we're always so pleasantly surprised when they do. Take Target's Favorite Day Frozen Tiramisu, for example. This tiramisu likely didn't need to be as high-quality as it is, but its ingredients list reveals a product that's made with nothing but the basics: Cream, sugar, eggs, flour, coffee, and cocoa powder.

While a few of its ingredients, like citric acid and guar gum, might be slightly harder to find on store shelves, you'll likely be able to grab most of these at your local shop. This makes a delightful change from most of the other frozen cakes you find out there, which are somewhat needlessly loaded with hard-to-find preservatives. This product fits in with Target's vision for its Favorite Day line, which seeks to offer high-quality sweet treats to customers across its stores. While the Favorite Day Frozen Tiramisu might set you back by a few bucks, you won't regret buying it. ‌

Marie Callender's is a familiar name in the frozen aisle, and its pies are loved across the whole country. Unfortunately, you might love them a little less when you see what's in them. Take its Coconut Cream Pie, which has an ingredients list that looks like it's come straight out of a lab. There's cream and coconut in this coconut cream pie, sure, but they sit behind a pair of highly processed hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup.

As well as this, it's somewhat troubling how few ingredients we recognize are on this list. This pie is made up of less than 2% egg yolk (which would normally be a key ingredient in a cake like this), and it has other mind-boggling additions like sorbitan monostearate, polysorbate 60, sodium metabisulfite, and sodium caseinate. These ingredients all have a purpose, of course: Sorbitan monostearate and polysorbate 60 are emulsifiers, while sodium metabisulfite is a dough conditioner, and sodium caseinate adds texture. We have to ask, though: What's wrong with using just good-quality eggs, butter, flour, and cream?

Tres leches cake is one of life's true pleasures. This cake is prized for its combination of milk and dairy products, its super-sweet nature, and its soft, pillowy sponge. These are all things that could go drastically wrong when the freezer's involved, leading food manufacturers to reach for low-quality additives to keep the cake together. Luckily, Trader Joe's manages to avoid this pitfall. Instead, it sticks with the basics, with its Tres Leches Cake made up largely of heavy cream, evaporated and sweetened condensed milk, cane sugar, and egg yolks.

It's also good to see Trader Joe's using unbleached flour in its Tres Leches Cake, which goes through a slower, gentler production process, removing a key step of chemical bleaching. It's a little thing, but it speaks to the wider approach Trader Joe's has toward its food, aiming to keep things as simple as possible in the pursuit of quality and flavor — which this cake clearly exemplifies.

Dear, oh dear. So, we should start with a disclaimer: We're well aware that budget brand names like Walmart's Great Value range probably won't be using the highest-quality ingredients out there. However, even we were shocked when we saw what was going on in its Tres Leches Cake. One look at its ingredients list will leave your head spinning, with a dizzying onslaught of extracts, additives, preservatives, gums, and syrups. There are no fewer than four different gums in this cake, which definitely give it structure but which also speaks to the fact that it's an ultra-processed item.

It's also worth noting where Walmart appears to be cutting corners with its ingredients. It opts for a non-dairy whip topping instead of classic whipped cream, which likely won't give you the deep, creamy taste you're craving from this cake. Our main issue here, though, is that it's just way too complicated. Classic tres leches cake may have a fair few ingredients, but you know exactly what they are — and when you pick high-quality ones, that's all you need.