7 Publix Bakery Buys South Carolina Shoppers Grab Every Week
During a South Carolina summer, there’s a good chance the dessert on your neighbor’s porch came from Publix’s bakery rather than their oven.
Nobody wants to bake in this heat.
These are some of the most beloved Publix bakery buys that South Carolinians can’t help but grab.
1. Chocolate Ganache Supreme Cake
Arguably, the Publix bakery cake most shoppers can find with their eyes closed is the Chocolate Ganache Supreme.
It draws near-unanimous praise from Publix fans online.
Layers of chocolate cake sit under a chocolate whipped filling and a ganache icing streaked with ribbons of fudge.
Chocolate on chocolate.
The Chocolate Ganache Supreme turns a birthday into an event from Rock Hill to Beaufort.
Somebody in the family requests it every year.
The bakery keeps whole cakes and two-slice packs ready, so you can grab it big or small.
A half-sheet feeds a whole Sunday school class. The two-slice pack covers a Tuesday when only you and the couch are celebrating.
Bring a Ganache Supreme to a Sunday gathering and watch the pan empty before the sweet tea runs out.
2. Berry Chantilly Cake
The Berry Chantilly Cake sits in the Publix bakery case all year.
But it tends to move fastest once berry season hits.
Layers of vanilla and almond cake meet a mascarpone Chantilly cream, a raspberry filling, and a crown of glazed strawberries and blueberries.
It’s the party cake.
Graduation open houses, bridal showers, and baby showers across the Midlands lean on it.
More than one Carolina couple has skipped a fancy baker and set it out at the wedding instead.
The berries on top make it read fresh instead of heavy, so people who swear they don’t want cake take a second sliver anyway.
Publix rolls out a whole line of Chantilly treats once berries are in season, from cupcakes to a cold tres leches version.
3. Key Lime Pie
A lot of Lowcountry cookouts end with a Publix bakery Key Lime Pie on the table.
It sits on a graham cracker crust, tart and cold, under a ring of whipped cream and sliced almonds pressed around the edge.
No oven required.
In July, nobody in Charleston wants to heat the kitchen, so people carry it to the porch already sliced.
The sliced almonds around the rim are the giveaway that it came from the bakery, not a box mix from the baking aisle.
It’s a year-round staple, not a summer-only pie, so it turns up in carts long after cookout season ends.
It has earned enough of a following that shoppers grab it on a whim, no occasion required, then go back the next week for another.
4. French Bread
Few things leave the Publix bakery more often than a warm French bread loaf.
Publix has baked its bread from scratch in the store since 1957, and the warm loaf near the front is the everyday proof.
Grab it warm.
It turns into garlic bread next to a pot of spaghetti, a base for pimento cheese, or the sturdy roll behind a Pub Sub when you build a Pub Sub at home.
A loaf costs about the same as a candy bar, so it goes in the cart on the weekly trip without anyone thinking twice.
Go early in the day, before Friday-game crowds in Columbia clear the shelf, and you catch it at its softest.
Psst! You know your way around Publix’s bakery case, but how well do you know Southern baking? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Southern Bakery IQ
Nine questions on Southern baking and Carolina food lore. See how many you can ace.
Georgia gets the nickname, but which state grows more peaches?
5. Free Kids' Cookie
The Publix bakery has one draw that kids often spot before their parents do: A free cookie.
Ask for it at the bakery counter.
A child walks away with a free cookie, usually the soft sugar cookie with sprinkles.
No purchase required.
Publix paused the giveaway during the pandemic and brought it back in 2021, to the relief of many parents trying to finish a grocery list with a restless four-year-old in the seat.
One cookie means ten easy minutes and a clean run through the rest of the store.
6. Cinnamon Fry Donuts
A pack of Cinnamon Fry Donuts from the Publix bakery rescues a slow weekend morning.
They come fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar, four to a box, landing somewhere between a doughnut and a cinnamon roll.
They go fast.
When the fry donuts show up in the weekly buy-one-get-one ad, the deal works differently in South Carolina than in Florida.
You can take a single pack at half price, no need to buy two to get the deal.
Kids clean out a box before a road trip down I-95.
The cinnamon sugar ends up on every seatbelt.
Warm them for a few seconds, and a Sunday breakfast in Spartanburg is handled before the coffee finishes brewing.
7. Decadent Double Cookies and Cream
One of the newer things by the Publix bakery register is a two-pack of Decadent Double Cookies and Cream.
They're thick, cake-like cookies with a mousse icing and crushed cookies pressed on top.
Publix makes them in two varieties, Cookies and Cream and Double Chocolate.
Shoppers who used to drive across town for a bakery cookie this size now toss a pack in their cart on the way past.
The cookies-and-cream flavor tends to sell out first, so the shopper who circles back Sunday afternoon often finds an empty spot where it sat.
Grab a pack on the way out and a plain bread run turns into dessert without a second errand.
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