Publix Tiramisu Delight Cake Review
Not a delight.
Warning: Publix shaming ahead.
It’s probably not a good idea to write food reviews when you’re feeling angry and vengeful, so let me assure you that I wrote this over several days and gave myself plenty of time to cool off and reconsider. To say this cake was a “disappointment” is a major understatement. This was an awful cake, and extra-disappointing because I special-ordered it two days in advance. I spent the subsequent two days dreaming about my cake and counting down the hours and minutes until I would swoop into Publix and carry it triumphantly home. If you think I am exaggerating, you don’t know how I feel about cake.
Here is the description of this Tiramisu Delight cake, from the Publix Bakery website: “Four layers of coffee-soaked vanilla cake layers, filled with mascarpone chantilly filling. Iced with vanilla whipped topping and garnished with chocolate curls, cocoa powder, and chocolate pieces.”
Lies.
There is NO discernable coffee in this cake. There is no traditional mascarpone filling, either. None that I can detect. There’s a thin smear of what tastes like very sweet, dense cannoli cream that extends less than half-way through each layer. The rest is just flavorless fake whipped topping and regular ‘ol yellow cake. That’s it. Nothing that resembles “tiramisu,” of any manifestation.
I bought this cake as my reward for a long, hard week of sadness at my job. I nearly cried when I cut into it. Don’t laugh at me. Food disappointments are a terrible thing. TERRIBLE food disappointments are an even terribler thing. Is “terribler” a word? Is it now.
I was promised coffee soaked cake. Don’t be fooled by that brown line between each layer. I was hopeful that it was just the slightest smear of coffee, but it is not. I think it is merely the browned crust from baking the yellow cake. There is zero coffee smell or flavor. I checked diligently. I ate a slice to be sure. I wanted to believe my own taste buds were wrong, and not Publix.
But Publix was wrong.
There’s also no rum or marsala wine flavor, as is quasi-traditional for tiramisu. I’d give that a pass, if the cake was flavorful in other ways. But it’s not. This is probably the most flavorless cake I’ve had anywhere in quite a while.
Because I feel compelled to say something — anything! — nice about this dessert, I’ll say that the “vanilla cake” is moist and soft. It’s generic yellow-ish cake that tastes like it came from an inexpensive commercial mix. But, it IS moist.
There. I tried.
Unfortunately, I already dislike the fake whipped topping that Publix uses in their bakery items, so it added insult to injury to discover the top 1-2 inches of the cake were just giant mounds of flavorless white whipped yuck. Mountains of yuck. I scraped mine off.
The same fake, tasteless whipped stuff is most of the filling between the cake layers, too. Cruel, cruel world!
All that aside, this cake is highly photogenic. I wish I looked this good in pictures. If you just want something pretty to look at and don’t care how your cake tastes, this one is a winner. The decorations are chic and contemporary-looking. Taste it with your eyes.
The triangular shards of chocolate bark emerging from the waves of whipped cream remind me of shark fins in the ocean. Edgy.
On the sides of the cake, the chocolate curls add a sharp textural contrast. Those curls look great when the slices are plated, too. The dusting of cocoa powder is an extra-sleek aesthetic touch. I approve.
I found the cake serves well without the slices falling apart. The whipped topping and garnishes remain intact without melting or falling off, even when bouncing down the highway for 30 minutes at 65 miles an hour in a hot Florida car without air conditioning during a record summer heat wave. My car did melt the tip of one of the chocolate shark fins, however.
Ingredients and Price
This cake cost $25.99. Publix says it serves 6-8. But I no longer trust anything Publix promises. So there!
Here are the ingredients:
Ingredients in Publix Bakery Tiramisu Delight Cake:
Sugar, Water, Liquid Sucrose (Cane Sugar, Water),Cream (Cream, Milk, Carrageenan), Bleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic acid) Dark Chocolate (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Butter Oil {Milk}, Soy Lecithin natural Vanilla Flavor), Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm, Palm Kernel, Coconut And/Or cottonseed), Marscarpone (Pasteurized Milk, Modified Milk Ingredients, Fructose, Citric acid, Potassium sorbate Preservative, Natural flavor, Salt, Maltodextrin, Mono-&Diglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Locust Bean Gum, Calcium Chloride), Eggs, Dark Chocolate Carat (Sugar, Vegetable Oils {Palm Kernel, Palm}, Cocoa Processed With alkali, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, Vanilla), Soy oil, Milk, Bleached Wheat Flour, Cream, Palm oil, Modified Food starch, Nonfat Milk, Egg white, Dextrose, Leavening (Potassium Bicarbonate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Monocalcium phosphate), Salt, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Mono-Diglycerides, Cornstarch, Sodium Caseinate, Natural & Artificial flavor, Polysorbate 60, Coffee Extract (Water, Alcohol, Colombian coffee, Caramel Color, Citric Acid), Natural flavor, Sorbitan Monostearate, Soy Lecithin, Gums (Carbohydrate, Xanthan, Guar, Cellulose), Beta Carotene Color, Cocoa, Color (Yellow corn Meal, Spices {Turmeric, Annatto} Soy oil),Citrus Fiber, Custard Flavor, Alcohol, Glycerin.
I can clearly see mascarpone and coffee extract listed in the ingredients, BTW. Albeit, misspelled.
I’d also like to point out that Publix already makes a smaller, simpler Tiramisu dessert (located in the “grab ‘n go” area of the bakery), which DOES have copious amounts of coffee syrup, and a cheesy filling. I’ve bought it many times over the years, and although it isn’t entirely authentic, it’s still tasty and satisfying. So Publix knows how to make tiramisu-ish cake, they’re just not.
I Do Not Recommend. Really. I Don’t.
Honestly? Not only would I never buy this cake again, I’m disappointed enough that it will probably be a looooong time before I consider Publix Bakery products for any kind of dessert, especially special events where I might end up disappointing a whole bunch of people at once. Shame on you, Publix! You broke my little tiramisu-loving heart!
This would be a great country-western song. Make it so.
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Author’s note: I have no affiliation with Publix, and I was not compensated in any way for this review.
