I have been so jealous of everyone buying that gigantic chocolate peanut butter pie at Costco in the last couple of weeks. I don’t even have the room in my freezer to save the leftovers if I did buy it. But at the other end of the spectrum is Trader Joe’s Lemon Mini Sheet Cake. It can’t be much bigger than a 5×7 picture! That was a no brainer. And ya’ll, it is good.
If you’ve been here before, you know I usually I find a lot of Trader Joe’s desserts too sweet for my taste. But this one works for me. The cake is lightly lemony and the cream cheese frosting isn’t so sweet that I scraped it off. And because it’s. cream cheese frosting, it has a nice body to it, versus being thin, greasy white grocery store frosting. One redditor mentioned the lemon wasn’t punchy enough for them, but I liked it. I also liked the yuzu ripple ice cream, which was more subtle, too.
Aside from being a manageable overall size, the other good thing is the ratio of cake to frosting. You’re basically looking at 1.5 inches of cake to roughly 1/2 an inch of frosting. That seems about right, unless you really really love frosting.
The good news is the ingredient list is pretty clean. But what was a little bit shocking is that each serving has 18g of fat. (Yes, it’s cake, but…) They’re putting this cake at 6 servings, which seems about right, but 18 grams of fat for 1/6 of it! Wowzers. But it’s because the ingredient list includes sour cream, butter and cream cheese. I’m glad I cut my pieces smaller! No regrets, just know what you’re getting into. I think I was also shocked because on the TJ’s official podcast they suggested buying two and making it a layer cake. WHOA.
I would definitely buy Trader Joe’s Lemon Mini Sheet Cake again. No question. But I’m also still eyeing that Costco Chocolate Peanut Butter pie, so we’ll see. If you’re looking for other new Spring items hitting shelves at Trader Joe’s soon, we’ve got it here: Trader Joe’s Previews 16 New and Returning Spring Items.
Check out some other We Tried’s from Trader Joe’s:
Portuguese Custard Tarts (Pasteis de Nata)
Sparkling Green Tea with Pineapple Juice