With my daughter’s 4th birthday coming up, I started to scope out different cupcake options for her party.
Parents will be attending with their kids, which means buying enough cupcakes for the group could get expensive.
As I researched, I was surprised by the price differences for custom cupcakes from some of my nearby chains, including Walmart, Wegmans, and Publix.
So, I ordered a dozen from each to see which cupcakes would have the best value, look, and flavor. Here’s how they stacked up.
I ordered cupcakes with white buttercream frosting and rainbow sprinkles from each store.
Each of these stores has premade cupcakes available in their bakery sections, but I wanted to see how the chains would handle my custom order.
I used the online ordering option for each store and chose cupcakes topped with white buttercream frosting and rainbow sprinkles.
All three chains had an easy-to-use system that let me quickly choose the options I wanted. Each of my orders was ready on time and accurate.
Kids and adults judged the cupcakes on appearance and taste.
My priority was finding a good-value cupcake that my daughter loved, though I also wanted to see what the adults at the party thought.
I had seven kids, ages 4 to 12, and eight adults try each cupcake in a blind taste test.
Each participant rated which cupcake was the most aesthetically pleasing and which tasted best without knowing what store it came from.
The Walmart cupcakes were the smallest but also the cheapest.
I paid $8.13, including tax, for a dozen cupcakes at Walmart. They were the cheapest option by far.
These cupcakes were noticeably smaller than the rest, but if they’d been the only option, I don’t think I would’ve thought they were small.
Even so, the kids unanimously agreed these were the most visually appealing and that they’d choose to eat them first.
It seemed fair considering these cupcakes had the most sprinkles in the most vibrant colors compared to the ones from Wegmans and Publix.
The kids loved the Walmart cupcake. The adults did not.
In my opinion, the frosting on the Walmart cupcakes was overwhelmingly sweet and the cake was dry with little flavor.
The other adults agreed and, as a result, we ranked these as our least favorite.
However, all of the kids rated the Walmart cupcakes as their top pick, likely due to the super-sweet frosting and pretty aesthetic.
Wegmans’ cupcakes looked the most gourmet but came with a high price tag.
The cupcakes from Wegmans were the most expensive at $24.90 for a dozen — more than triple the cost of the Walmart cupcakes.
The cupcakes were almost identical in size to the Publix ones and bigger than the Walmart ones. The frosting on these was swirled the highest.
Wegmans’ cupcakes had the best flavor and frosting.
The adults unanimously picked the cupcakes from Wegmans as their favorite. The buttercream frosting was light, airy, and perfectly sweet.
We also agreed the cake was also the most moist and flavorful of the ones we tried.
The icing didn’t extend all the way to the edge of the cupcake, which made it look like it came from a more high-end bakery. This might have been a more important factor had these been for an adult gathering, not a kid’s birthday party.
The Publix cupcakes were a good compromise between flavor and price.
A dozen cupcakes from Publix set me back $10.81.
I personally found these cupcakes to be the most visually appealing, with large amounts of icing and an array of sprinkles on top. Their flavor was good, too.
The Publix cupcakes seemed pretty balanced.
Publix’s frosting wasn’t as light as Wegmans’ frosting, but it wasn’t as overly sweet as Walmart’s.
The cake was also fairly moist and had more notes of vanilla than Walmart’s, but wasn’t as flavorful as Wegmans’ version.
For the occasion and the price, Walmart was the winner —otherwise, I’d choose Publix.
Even though we adults thought Wegmans’ cupcakes were the best, I didn’t think they were worth the high price tag.
For a child’s birthday, I’ll probably stick to the Walmart cupcakes since they were the least expensive and the clear kids’ favorite.
For adult birthdays or celebrations, I still wouldn’t pick Wegmans. The price is just too high for me to justify buying them.
Instead, I’d go for Publix cupcakes, which are almost as good and less than half the price.
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