8 Costco Bakery Items That Actually Aren't Made From Scratch

If you're craving a sweet treat or looking for a centerpiece dessert for your next party, you could spend the time and effort making something at home ... or you could just pick something up on your next Costco shopping trip. Customers rave about the warehouse chain's bakery selection, which includes a range of cakes, pies, muffins, pastries, and breads. And if it's made in the bakery, it must be made from scratch, right?

Well ... not quite. While most of the breads and pies are made completely from scratch in-store, a few of the desserts are made from a mix and many come to the store frozen and are thawed or reheated for customers. In many cases, it makes sense to do it this way, as the amount of work that would go into making every product from scratch would be enormous. Having the products be frozen or come from a pre-made mix doesn't necessarily make them less tasty, as many of Costco's desserts are delicious regardless. However, folks who are looking for the absolute freshest baked goods may want to know which Costco bakery items aren't made from scratch.

Costco offers a variety of pies in its bakery: cherry, lemon meringue, peach, pecan, pumpkin, strawberry rhubarb, and even a delightful chocolate peanut butter pie. But none of these are quite as famous as Costco's apple pie. Costco's version of this all-American classic weighs in at a whopping 4 pounds, 11 ounces. Customers adore this pie for its flakey crust, flavorful filling, and excellent price.

While most of the pies at Costco are made completely from scratch in-house, the apple pie is one of the few exceptions. Current and former employees on Reddit state that the apple pie comes to the bakery frozen, but bakery employees bake it in-store and add a little sugar on top before setting it out on the floor. This means the pies are fully cooked when you purchase them, but you can still pop them in the oven for a bit if you prefer your pie warm.

There doesn't seem to be any publicly released reason as to why most pies are made in the Costco bakery, but the apple pies are not. Additionally, one user on Reddit mentioned that the fruit custard pies use a pre-made mix, but are mixed together and baked in the bakery.

It seems like Costco bagels should be a hit; after all, bagels are a great base for a simple meal, they come in a variety of flavors, and you can even buy a big box of Costco bagels for a small price. Despite all this, Costco customers are not generally wowed by the company's bagels, stating that they're doughy and bready, and if you don't freeze them right away, they grow mold fast.

While it could just be the recipe that Costco uses, one of the reasons why bagels might be some of the chain's most underwhelming bakery items could also be that they aren't made in-store. The bagels come frozen, and while this has benefits, like allowing customers to purchase mass quantities, it probably doesn't help the taste or texture. Unlike Costco pies, there don't seem to be exceptions either; all Costco bagels come frozen, not just certain flavors.

That being said, some customers state that while the bagels aren't mind-blowing, they're perfectly fine, and the price is hard to beat. Several recommend freezing whatever you don't use immediately, slicing them first, and then popping them in the toaster when you're ready to eat.

Costco cakes are, quite literally, the stuff of legend. Whether round or sheet, the cakes look great, taste delicious, and don't break the bank. Sure, the ordering system is kind of archaic, but that just adds to the experience of obtaining a Costco cake. And if you choose not to preorder, there are usually plenty of pre-made cakes waiting in the bakery. The chain offers standard cake flavors, like vanilla and chocolate, for their standard cakes, but the mini cakes are usually seasonal flavors.

No matter what type of cake you order, you can be sure you're getting it freshly baked in the store. However, the cake itself isn't made from scratch. Instead, bakers use a base mix, sort of like a boxed mix, to make the cake. The fillings, buttercream icing, and fudge icing, on the other hand, are made from scratch, according to bakery employees on Reddit. The only thing that isn't made or mixed in-house is the colored icing used for decoration, which comes in buckets. If that makes you hesitate, you can always order a plain cake and spruce it up yourself!

While the bagels might be a bit of a disappointment, the same can't be said for Costco's cheesecake. It's one of the best store-bought cheesecakes out there, and one of the biggest, weighing in at a massive 4.5 pounds. The base is a crumbly graham cracker crust, and the luxurious cream cheese filling is topped with a tangy sour cream layer and a piped border of vanilla buttercream. Costco also offers several variations of its classic cheesecake, including a chocolate cheesecake and a mixed berry cheesecake.

Customers generally enjoy Costco's cheesecakes, so it might surprise some to learn that the cheesecakes aren't completely made from scratch. Instead, the cheesecake filling is made from a mix. That being said, the cake is mixed and assembled in-store, which is a far cry from arriving frozen. It's worth noting that one employee on Reddit mentioned that their location made the cheesecake from scratch, so this could be location-dependent.

Cookies are some of the most versatile and beloved desserts in existence. Chocolate chip are a top favorite, but so are sugar, oatmeal raisin, and macadamia nut. Costco's bakery offers a variety of cookie options. Some, like the chocolate chunk, are available year-round, while others are seasonal. However, regardless of the type of cookie, they all have one thing in common: they come frozen.

This isn't a huge surprise; frozen cookie dough is pretty common, and since Costco sells the cookies in bulk, making cookies from scratch in-store could be pretty time-consuming. Using frozen dough allows the bakery to plop them on a tray, bake them, and get them sealed up and out on the floor faster.

Because the dough comes pre-made, customers have discovered a frozen cookie hack at Costco. Some Costco locations will sell frozen cookies to customers in bulk, allowing customers to bake the cookies at home, only making as many as they need at one time, and saving customers money. If you choose to go this route, just remember never to eat raw cookie dough. As tempting as it may be, the eggs and, more commonly, the flour, can harbor bacteria that can give you food poisoning. In fact, raw cookie dough was part of one of the biggest food recalls in U.S. history specifically for this reason.

Most of the bread items from Costco bakeries are made in-store and completely from scratch, like multigrain bread, French bread, and garlic bread. However, croissants, which straddle the line between a pastry and a bread, are one exception. Croissants are shipped frozen and baked in-store before being set out in the bakery area.

In fairness to Costco, croissants can be kind of a pain to make from scratch. While it's not hard, per se, it's a several-step process that includes chilling the dough for several hours or even overnight. When the dough comes frozen, the bakery can pop the croissants in the oven and have warm, flakey goodness in a fraction of the time. For similar reasons, other Costco bakery items like rugelach and baguettes come frozen and are baked in-store as well.

Once you get the croissants home, you can put them back in the freezer to save them for later and prevent them from going bad. To get them to taste just-made, pop the frozen croissants in the oven or air fryer at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about five to 10 minutes.

Sure, muffins aren't the healthiest breakfast option, but they're awfully tasty. Muffins have been a staple of Costco's bakery since pretty much forever, although they haven't stayed the same over the years. Recently, Costco made some changes to its muffin selection, discontinuing the apple crumb, banana nut, poppyseed, and vanilla chocolate chunk, and replacing them with flavors like butter pecan and lemon raspberry. The brand has also upgraded its double chocolate chip muffins to triple chocolate chip and adjusted the size and packaging of their muffins: instead of six gigantic muffins in a pack, you'll now get eight, still-very-large muffins in a pack.

It's unclear if the new muffins are made from scratch or not, but the old ones weren't. Costco bakeries used a pre-made mix to make the muffins, but the batter was made and the muffins were baked inside the bakeries. It wouldn't be surprising if the new ones are made this way as well, especially with so many different flavor options that need to be made each day. Once the muffins get packaged up, they're good for about a week. If you want them to last longer, you can store the muffins in the freezer and let them thaw or reheat them when you're ready to eat.

Tiramisu is a luxuriously rich dessert made from layers of ladyfingers soaked in coffee or a coffee syrup and a mascarpone mixture. Over the years, Costco bakeries have offered tiramisu in several forms, from single-serving size cups to a massive two-pound square dessert. When you purchase tiramisu from the regular grocery aisles, you'll find it with the frozen desserts, so it's no surprise that the bakery's tiramisu is shipped frozen as well. Once they arrive at the bakery, the desserts are thawed and then put in the bakery's display.

The same is true for a few other desserts that typically are not served warm, like the warehouse chain's tuxedo cake. This decadent cake is a customer favorite. Similar to tiramisu, tuxedo cake is a layered cake, but it's made of layers of rich chocolate cake and creamy mousse and topped with a thick layer of dark chocolate ganache. Also like the tiramisu, the tuxedo cake arrives frozen and is thawed before being put on the floor. As this dessert is served chilled, it makes sense that the company would opt to ship it frozen rather than have bakers make and assemble it in-store. While, in most cases, made-from-scratch tastes better, in the case of this tuxedo cake, the frozen version is already excellent.