7 Publix Bakery Requests North Carolinians Never Think to Make

You stop at the Publix bakery, pick up something that looks good, and carry on with your shopping.

It’s a perfectly fine routine, but the display isn’t the whole story.

These are the Publix bakery requests North Carolinians often never think to make.

1. Order-Ahead Bread

Publix lets a shopper request a loaf of bread by name ahead of time, instead of taking whatever’s left on the shelf.

The bakery’s order-ahead list includes Sourdough Round, Italian Five Grain, White Mountain, Chicago Italian, rye, egg bread or challah, and braided brioche.

Each loaf is marked ready as soon as the next day.

A shopper places the order online or through the app, picks a pickup time, and collects it in-store when it’s ready.

Those loaves come from a bakery that mixes and bakes more than a dozen scratch-made bread varieties in the store.

Order it by name.

2. Custom-Message Cakes

Publix’s bakery will write a personalized message on a cake you order ahead.

The message tops out at fifty characters.

The order includes a choice of vanilla, chocolate, marble, carrot, red velvet, or a vanilla-chocolate combo cake, plus buttercream, fudge, cream cheese, or whipped icing, ready by the next day.

A blank cake turns into a birthday card, an apology, or an inside joke.

You pick the words.

Publix’s order form takes special instructions on that cake too, though some of them may result in additional charges in-store.

3. Wedding Cake Consultations

Publix’s Mills River bakery earned a mention from WLOS, the ABC-affiliate station covering western North Carolina.

Publix’s announcement of the store, reprinted by WLOS, puts its wedding cakes and desserts in the hands of skilled decorators.

Publix charges nothing for that consultation, whether you book it by phone or through the online form.

The tasting is free.

A couple can start the process with a call to 1.833.PCATERS, or an online form that has Publix’s catering team reach back instead.

A catering consultant walks through flavor, filling, and icing over a free tasting, then matches the cake’s colors to a fabric swatch or ribbon the couple brings in.

The same booking process covers other special-occasion cakes too, not only a wedding day.

4. Cookie Cakes for a Crowd

Publix’s bakery bakes a 12-inch chocolate chip cookie cake that serves about 10.

A pre-decorated design leaves less room to customize, since Publix keeps changes narrow there to protect the artwork.

A smaller message-cookie order serves about eight.

The cookie cake needs 24 hours’ notice, and Publix’s order-ahead cakes take at least a day.

Order it the day before.

5. Ice Cream Cakes

Publix’s order-ahead menu includes a frozen cake for a shopper who wants ice cream instead of buttercream.

Flavors on the list include Moose Tracks, Cookie N’ Cream, Chocolate Trinity, and a Vanilla Crunch Pint Sundae Cake, each flavor ready as soon as the next day.

It skips the freezer aisle.

This bakery counter does more than buttercream and fudge icing.

6. Whole Pies to Order

Publix’s bakery takes requests for a whole pie by flavor, instead of whatever happens to be sitting in the case that morning.

The order-ahead list includes sweet potato, buttermilk, pecan, pumpkin, original Key lime, mini Key lime, Dutch apple, and a GreenWise pumpkin pie.

That mini pie serves about three.

The list also runs smaller, with a small lemon meringue and a mini chocolate fudge cream pie for a shopper who doesn’t need a whole pie.

Pumpkin shows up twice on that list, in a standard version and a GreenWise version, which is worth remembering heading into the fall holidays.

7. Dessert Platters for a Party

Publix’s bakery builds a dessert platter to order and sized for a crowd.

The lineup includes a sugar and chocolate chip cookie platter that serves about 20, a chocolate-covered strawberry platter, and a brownie bite platter.

A cannoli and strawberry platter rounds it out, alongside a 90-count Decadent Sweets platter.

Changes stay possible even after the order goes in, Publix says, right up to a call to the store.

Retired Cooking Classes

Publix ran hands-on Aprons Cooking Schools inside its stores before closing every one of them on July 31, 2023.

Every one of the eleven locations sat in Florida, Georgia, or Virginia, so North Carolina's Publix bakeries never had one to lose in the first place.

Publix has 63 stores in North Carolina, the figure the Shelby Report published this past August.

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