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When I was growing up, my mom didn’t buy much junk food. We sometimes indulged in frozen pizza and a 2-liter of soda on Friday nights while watching the TGIF television lineup. We had cake made from box mixes for birthdays. We enjoyed pie and ice cream on holidays. But we didn’t have things like potato chips or fruit snacks in the house on a regular basis. We were more likely to have fruit, vegetables, crackers, and cheese on hand.
One thing mom certainly didn’t buy was prepackaged baked goods and snacks such as Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Swiss Rolls, Honey Buns, and the like. My siblings and I pretty much only ate those at friends’ houses or if someone in our class at school brought them in for a birthday treat.
As a mom myself now, I also don’t buy these sugary, carb-laden treats often. I might pick up a box of Oatmeal Creme Pies for a birthday celebration. Or, in the first couple of weeks after my second child was born, when I was nursing my new infant, I remember going through a few boxes of Little Debbie Nutty Bars that just really hit the spot.
While my family doesn’t eat this stuff often, I did notice that Aldi sells its own line of knockoff Little Debbie and Hostess types of snacks. The discount grocer sells Swiss rolls, honey buns, brownies, cinnamon streusel coffee cakes, individually wrapped danishes and single-serving hand pies, and mini muffins.
I was curious to see how these compare to their name-brand counterparts. I recently tried the Aldi version of Swiss Rolls. Here, I’m taking a look at another classic snack food: chocolate cupcakes.
Baker’s Treat Cup Cakes are a Regular Buy, which means you should be able to find them at Aldi all year.
These cost $2.69 for a 12.7-ounce box containing eight cupcakes at the time of writing. That comes out to about 34 cents per cupcake or about 21 cents per ounce.
These are comparable to either Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes or Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes. I bought a box of Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes at my local traditional grocery store to try alongside the Aldi cupcakes.
From a price perspective, the Aldi cupcakes are the cheapest. A 12.7-ounce box of eight name-brand Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes cost $3.09 at my local regular grocery store at the time of writing, and that comes out to about 39 cents per cupcake. A 12.7-ounce box of eight name-brand Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes cost $3.48 at Walmart at the time of writing, which comes out to about 44 cents per cupcake.
If you’re looking out for allergens, the Aldi cupcakes contain wheat, soy, milk, and egg.
I noticed that the name-brand Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes we sampled at the same time disclose that they may contain tree nuts, so if you’re looking for nut-free cupcakes, go with the Aldi ones. The Hostess brand also does not list tree nuts among its allergens.
Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)
Looking at overall ingredients, these contain plenty of sugar, calories, saturated fat, and carbs no matter what brand you go with. The Aldi cupcakes do have the fewest calories at 160 per 45-gram cupcake, while a 45-gram Little Debbie cupcake has 200 calories and a 45-gram Hostess cupcake has 170 calories. The cupcakes are all similar in terms of saturated fat, carbs, and added sugars across the different brands.
Nutrition information and ingredients for Baker’s Treat Cup Cakes on the left, Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes on the right. (Click to enlarge.)
Something that might sway you toward the Aldi cupcakes is the fact that they do not contain artificial food dyes, whereas the Little Debbie cupcakes contain red 40. The Hostess cupcakes also don’t appear to contain artificial colors.
One Aldi Baker’s Treat Chocolate Cupcake has 160 calories, 6 grams of total fat (8% DV), 2.5 grams of saturated fat (13% DV), 5 mg of cholesterol (2% DV), 220 mg of sodium (10% DV), 27 grams of total carbohydrates (10% DV), 1 gram of dietary fiber, 18 grams of added sugars (36% DV), and 1 gram of protein.
Baker’s Treat Cup Cakes on the left, Little Debbie Cup Cakes on the right.
As for how the Aldi cupcakes taste, we tried them alongside Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes and found them to be practically indistinguishable in terms of flavor and texture. The Aldi cupcakes have a slightly lighter appearance, and the white frosting curlicues on top of the Little Debbie cupcakes are bigger and less well defined. The only differences we could find were those visual ones, though. Going by taste, we really could not tell a difference.
Given that fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy the Aldi chocolate cupcakes again if I wanted this type of snack. You could set them out at a party and no one would be able to tell they’re not name brand.
The Verdict:
Baker’s Treat Cup Cakes are the Aldi version of name-brand Little Debbie or Hostess chocolate cupcakes. We tried the Aldi cupcakes alongside some Little Debbie ones, and we could not tell a difference in terms of taste or texture. We also noticed the Aldi cupcakes are free of artificial colors and do not contain tree nuts, while we can’t say the same for the Little Debbie brand. These are not something to indulge in often, but if you’re in the mood for this type of cupcake, you can’t go wrong with the cheaper Aldi version.
