The Walmart Bakery Cake Shoppers Can't Get Enough Of

Many shoppers like grocery store bakeries for their more affordable baked goods that don't sacrifice flavor, as many chains have stepped up their game with private-label brands. Walmart's Marketside brand makes a cake that its customers can't get enough of, which many say is a spot-on dupe of one of Starbucks' loaf cakes. The Marketside Iced Lemon Sliced Loaf Cake is not only a taste- and look-alike for Starbucks' Iced Lemon Loaf, but we named it one of the best fresh-baked goods at popular grocery chains. Frankly, it's a great option if you don't feel like making a lemon drizzle cake or a slow-cooker French lemon cake.

The sliced loaf cake is made with lemon juice in both the cake and the icing, giving it lots of bright, lemony flavor that's praised in reviews on Walmart's website and from social media fans. Reviewers also note that it's moist and not too sweet, and some say it's not only as good as Starbucks' cake, but it might be even better. The lemony treat has an overall 4.4 out of 5 rating on Walmart's website, with three-quarters of the reviews giving it five stars.

Shoppers can buy the cake in a pack of eight 1.8-ounce slices for $4.98, enough to turn some of them into sunny French toast. Individually-wrapped slices that are a little over twice as big at 3.7 ounces are also available for $1.48 each. The lemon cake was one of the first three when the Marketside loaf cakes debuted in 2020, at just $1 for a slice at the time, along with Banana Nut and Iced Marble.

Even though Walmart's Iced Lemon Sliced Loaf Cake and Starbucks' Iced Lemon Loaf taste the same, according to reviewers, they do have ingredient differences. Starbucks uses buttermilk, for instance, which Walmart doesn't, and it also includes more forms of lemon flavor. The coffee chain doesn't break out ingredients for what it also calls a lemon loaf cake and icing separately, as Walmart does, but its overall ingredient list has both lemon juice and lemon zest, which it says is made with lemon peel, lemon oil, and sugar.

The real split between the two, however, is in price. Starbucks' cake slices are 4.1 ounces, just a little over the size of Walmart's individually sold ones, but they can cost nearly three times as much. Prices vary, but the lemon cake is $4.25 at Starbucks in Houston, Tampa, and Cincinnati, while it's a lower $3.95 in Sacramento, California, and a more expensive $4.45 in New York City.

One TikToker has noted that there are Walmart dupes of other Starbucks loaf cakes, too. As of this writing, Starbucks sells two in addition to the lemon loaf: Banana, Walnut & Pecan and Pumpkin Pepita. Marketside has a Banana Walnut Loaf and an Iced Pumpkin Bread, also sold in eight packs and as individual slices at the same prices as the lemon cake. They're not as exact dupes, but close. Additionally, there's also a Marketside Iced Cinnamon Sliced Loaf Cake that the TikToker contends could be a riff on Starbucks' non-loaf Cinnamon Coffee Cake.