Costco Chocolate Mousse Cake Review
Chocolate goodness, but no buttery goodness.
Yeppers. I finally did it. I’ve been hearing people rave about Costco’s Chocolate Cake with Mousse Filling for a while, and I finally bought one.
And I ate it. I ate it all myself. Sorry-not-sorry.
This cake weighs almost 5 pounds. The label says it weighs 3 pounds, 14 ounces. But the label is lying, my friend. I weighed it on my kitchen scale, and it was a gargantuan 4 pounds, 12 ounces. This is a LOT of cake.
Still not sorry.
The actual cake is velvety soft with an ultra-fine crumb. It’s not dense cake — it’s light — but it’s also reasonably moist. It has a satisfyingly dark flavor, with a pleasing salty roundness. Confession: I have no idea what “salty roundness” means; I just said that to sound cool.
The icing is a thick, sticky, stiff — almost fudgy — frosting. It was MUCH too sweet for me. I ended up scraping off most of mine and throwing it away. This is particularly true on the end of the cake, where there is a deep layer of the icing in the middle and on the top.
I guess this technically means I did NOT eat all the cake, because I threw away so much icing. Well. I tried, at least.
Have you ever eaten something, and known it was technically “good,” but you still didn’t want to ever have it again? That’s essentially how I feel about this cake. I ate it all. I enjoyed it. I know that it was “good” cake. But I don’t have any interest in buying another one, ever again. I pondered this, and decided it is probably the lack of butter and cream in the cake, and the cloying sweetness of the icing. The cake technically tastes “good,” but my body knew it wasn’t getting the butter and cream chemicals it wanted.
Anyway. I like the mousse layer in the center. It’s soft, and light, and a nice contrast to the dark density of the other layers. The whipped texture is only slightly chocolatey — in fact, mine had streaks of white in it, like it wasn’t thoroughly mixed. There’s an artificial “creamy” texture, without any actual cream. The mousse doesn’t melt or deteriorate, even after 10+ days of storage. This gets a suspicious eye-brow raise from me, but I gobbled it up anyway.
The cake aesthetic is rather “basic” and a bit mechanical. It would be a great blank slate for jazzing up with some custom decorations, like your own fresh flowers or cake toppers. Costco sometimes sells their chocolate and vanilla cakes with bright iced flower decorations, which I personally find garish and tacky. If you’re willing to spend a little extra time sprucing up this cake on your own, it could look much more appealing. Here’s an article with some grocery store cake makeovers, in case you need some ideas.
I would describe this as a “sturdy,” crowd-pleasing cake with a long shelf-life. It’s definitely not a gourmet or fancy item. The icing on top is combed in a stiff wave, and the sides are coated with a soft crumb texture. There are near-perfect piped swirls around the rim. My cake sat in my refrigerator for more than 10 days, and it looked and tasted exactly the same at the end of the 10 days as it did in the beginning. If you are taking this cake to a family gathering, it should survive a car trip and rough handling, and still arrive intact. It serves crisply, with just some minor sticking on the bottom. This is a nearly fool-proof cake.
Ingredients in Costco Chocolate Cake
Cocoa is listed twice (two different kinds), so definitely a dark, rich chocolate cake. I hate that soybean oil is the primary fat in this cake. There’s no butter or cream. High fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, and preservatives are used. Sadness abounds. Very much chemical sadness.
However, I am pretty sure the “Artificial Colors” listed are for the special decorated cakes with the brightly colored flowers and such. Mine was not decorated, so hopefully those artificial colors are not present.
Here are the full ingredients:
- Sugar
- Bleached Enriched flour (Wheat flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic acid)
- Water
- Soybean Oil
- Cocoa (processed with alkali)
- Cocoa
- Palm Oil
- Canola Oil
- Palm Kernel Oil
- Dextrose
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Egg Whites
- Contains 2% or less of the following: Coconut oil, Whey, Carbohydrate gum, Polysorbate 60, Sorbitan monostearate, Polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, Propylene glycol monoesters, Mono and Diglycerides, Soy lecithin, Sodium steroyal lactylate, Leavening (sodium bicarbonate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate), Corn starch, Egg yolks, Salt, Modified corn starch, Nonfat milk, Natural & artificial flavors, Xanthan gum, Calcium acetate, Guar gum, Citric acid, Gellan gum, Sodium citrate, Potassium sorbate and Sodium benzoate (preservatives), Sunflower lecithin, Sorbitan tristearate, Vanillin, BHA (an antioxidant), Beta Carotene (color), Caramel color, Artificial colors (FD&C Red #3, Red #40, Red #40 Lake, Blue #1, Blue #2 Lake, Yellow #5, Yellow #5 Lake, Yellow #6, Yellow #6 Lake.
Servings and Size of Kirkland Chocolate Cake
Costco’s Chocolate Mousse Cake costs $16.99. There are at least 16 servings, which means each serving costs $1.06.
The Costco item # is 1343114. This is a “Kirkland Signature” (store brand) bakery item.
More Reviews of Costco Desserts You Might Like (or Hate)
Check out these other reviews of Costco bakery desserts I’ve recently written:
- Costco Plain Cheesecake
- Costco Lemon Meringue Cheesecake
- Costco Strawberries & Cream Bar Cake
- Costco Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie
- Costco Pumpkin Pie
Author’s note: I was not paid or compensated to review this cake, and I have no affiliation with Costco.
