The Albertsons Bakery
As one of the nation's most recognizable supermarkets, Albertsons has 2,200 locations in the United States. Locations are primarily known for their 50,000 square feet of cavernous aisles filled with all manner of packaged goods, but the supermarket chain also has a renowned fresh bakery department that spins out freshly baked pies, cookies, pastries and delectable cakes on a daily basis. In fact, in June 2016 the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association (IDDBA) held the 21st annual Cake Decorating Challenge, and a baker from Albertsons took 2nd place. It's that kind of talent that makes the bakery at Albertsons a respectable source of fine baked goods for any occasion. Our search for the perfect cake was aided by the ability to browse Albertsons' easy-to-use website, and we think we ended up making a pretty good choice.
Personalized Cakes
Whether you'd like something for a baby shower, graduation, birthday, or another special occasion, the bakery team at Albertsons is there to help you create the cake you want from scratch. Alternatively, you can also choose one of their ready-made cakes with standard designs and ask them to dress it up with a personalized decorative touch. Keep in mind that you'll want to place your custom cake order at least 24 hours in advance to make sure the bakery team has enough time to decorate it to your exact specifications. When it comes to round cakes, you can choose a white, chocolate or marble base with vanilla or chocolate icing that comes in two varieties (buttercream or whipped). You can then decide on the colors you would like and whether or not you want to include a personal message in the design. While you can order online, Albertsons recommends that you place custom orders directly in-store to make sure you're able to speak one-on-one with a member of the bakery team. This helps make sure they really understand how you'd like your cake to look and helps to avoid any disappointments on the big day.
Readymade Cake Designs
The great thing about Albertsons is that they have an extensive catalogue of character-inspired sheet cakes and unique designs for various occasions. This is a great way to get a bit of inspiration when choosing your design and theme. If you're purchasing a cake for a child's birthday, for example, you can go for designs featuring Disney characters, Dora the Explorer, Thomas the Tank Engine, and more. Alternatively, you can choose a more classy setup with floral themes and more sophisticated color schemes. Whatever your taste, Albertsons has a cake option that's right for you.
How to Order Cake From Albertsons
Whether you want to get your hands on a premade cake from the bakery, or design your own from scratch, Albertsons has a wide variety of cake options to suit your individual needs. To get started, simply head over to your local Albertsons bakery to place an order or skip the trip and order your Albertsons cake online. For standard orders of pre-made baked goods, online orders tend to be the more convenient option as you can easily compare various sizes and styles. But sometimes it does help to see the cake in person to get a better idea of its table presence. Since some of our guests are finicky about food, we really wanted to do our homework, which included checking out the options online prior to ordering and then examining the cake in the store before taking it home.
Ordering Online
The Albertsons website has a convenient section for exploring its baked goods, and the website enables you to easily filter down the available options until you find the perfect cake. You'll see options from a number of brands such as Blue Bunny, Cafe Valley, and Ticklebelly, and you can also jump directly to the Albertsons Signature series, which is their line of house-made cakes. We found that the 8 inch 2-Layer Carrot Cake for $16.99 was a great choice for parties of about 12 people, and were even able to browse the ingredients and nutritional information. This ability to compare products so closely was a key benefit of ordering Albertsons cakes online. While we couldn't examine the cake up close, we definitely appreciated the ability to do our homework as many in our party had food sensitivities that we wanted to take into consideration before ordering. To that end, we also appreciated the convenient checkboxes on the search page which let you quickly filter out nutritional trouble areas like whether or not the cake is Kosher and whether it contains certain allergens. Realizing that someone in our party was allergic to peanuts, we filtered down the selection even further and found that we had to ditch the carrot cake in favor of the Two-Bite Carrot Cake Premium Cupcakes which came in packs of 12 for just $3.99 each. We had 20 people joining and wanted each guest to have at least 4 cupcakes because they were pretty tiny. So to be on the safe side we picked up 8 packs for a total of about $32. Considering we would've needed two carrot cakes at a total of $34 it ended up costing about the same.
In-Store Ordering
When personalization isn't an issue, online ordering will do just fine. But if you'd like to whip up something from scratch, you'll definitely want to get in touch with your local Albertsons. While each Albertsons has its own contact info, you can always call Albertsons corporate headquarters at (877) 723-3929 and ask them to direct you to the proper store location. Since we had the cupcakes already picked out we didn't need any personalization, but the bakers at Albertsons really are quite good. You can head into any Albertsons supermarket and meet directly with a bakery specialist who will discuss your custom cake order and make sure all of your nutritional and design criteria are taken into account. While it wasn't something we ended up needing after such a thorough online search, we definitely encourage you to get in touch and ask them to whip up something really special.
Menu & Pricing
With cake prices ranging from $7 to $80, you want to make sure you have a clear idea of how many people you'd like your cake to serve before placing an order. While pricing can vary from store to store, here's a rough idea of Albertsons cake prices.
Albertsons Round Cakes
5 Inch Cake - $6.99
8 Inch Single Layer Cake - $7.99
8 Inch Double Layer Cake - $7.99
Albertsons Sheet Cakes
1/4 Sheet Cake (Serves 22 people) - $23.99
1/2 Sheet Cake (Serves 44 people) - $32.99
Full Sheet Cake (Serves 80 people) - $49.99
Albertsons Cupcakes
12 Cupcakes - $7.99
15 Cupcakes - $10.99
24 Cupcakes - $14.99
Final Thoughts
With so many local bakery options to choose from, many people immediately write off Albertsons Bakery as a legitimate source for party-quality cakes. For that reason we undertook this in-depth review of their baked goods, and we're certainly glad we did. In evaluating the available options, we got a great feel for the benefits of ordering online and actually ended up choosing something that we probably wouldn't have picked at another bakery. We found the quality of the cupcakes we chose to be great, and we were happy to have all the information at our fingertips before making our final decision on what to buy.
