Magnolia Bakery: Delicious but Pricey
Friends of mine have raved to me for a long time about Magnolia Bakery, so I decided to conduct a proper review of the bakery and its three most popular items: the Key Lime Icebox Bar, Red Velvet Cheesecake, and Banana Pudding. Magnolia Bakery has a reputation for high-quality ingredients. It’s also known for colorful, sweet buttercreams, banana pudding, its nostalgic and vintage vibe, an emphasis on premium ingredients, and, depending on the item, higher-than-average prices. It is a higher-end bakery, and I wanted to find out if it’s worth it. I will review based on four main criteria: taste, cost, presentation, and atmosphere (with a 10/10 being the best).
The first popular item I tried was the Key Lime Icebox Bar, which was $7.45. It is definitely on the higher end of the price range for a single-serving icebox bar. The presentation is nice, but nothing crazy. The filling is tangy, sweet, and sits on a crunchy graham cracker crust, which is topped with whipped cream and lime zest. The filling is creamy and rich, but not too dense, like a custard filling. And the whipped cream balances out the tanginess from the filling.
Presentation: 7/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Price Fairness: 4/10
Another one of Magnolia Bakery’s most popular items is the Red Velvet Cheesecake. It is $8.95, which is on par for a single-serving cheesecake in Los Angeles. It is a large cupcake-sized red velvet cheesecake on a chocolate cookie crust, topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. The presentation is great, and the cake itself is a very vibrant red. The cheesecake is very rich, quite dense, and has a creamy, mousse-like texture, which pairs well with the crunch of the chocolate cookie crust. It tastes very sweet (maybe too much for some), with a mix of rich chocolate and cheesecake, and a hint of tanginess that is often associated with red velvet.
Presentation: 9/10
Taste: 8/10
Price Fairness: 6/10
By far, Magnolia Bakery is best known for its Banana Pudding. A Banana Pudding in the classic, or medium, size is $5.75. The price isn't crazy high, but it’s also not great; it depends on how much you care about fresh ingredients and if that justifies the price or not for you. It comes in the Magnolia Bakery cups and is made with ripe bananas and layers of soft vanilla wafers. There are sliced bananas and crushed vanilla wafers throughout, but the wafers absorb the pudding, so they melt in your mouth. It has a rich vanilla flavor and is known for its lightness and sweetness. The pudding has a whipped or mousse-like texture that's lighter than standard puddings.
Presentation: 7/10
Taste: 9/10
Price Fairness: 7/10
Overall, Magnolia Bakery got a 7.5/10 for presentation, an 8.5/10 for taste, and a 6/10 for price fairness. Magnolia Bakery also has an entire collection of intricate cakes and cupcakes, but for this review, I only focused on their most popular items. Magnolia Bakery offers some amazing desserts and stays consistent with its good taste, but its prices are quite high. Magnolia Bakery justifies this with the labor-intensive nature of these intricate desserts and their use of fresh, high-quality ingredients. Whether the higher quality ingredients justify the price is up to the consumer. In my opinion, it's worth it to try some of Magnolia Bakery’s desserts, but due to the price, it probably won't be a go-to bakery, but rather more of a treat.