The Best Baking Ingredients We’ve Found in Our Taste Tests

Making baked goods from scratch is a big undertaking. Seriously, imagine busting out the stand mixer and spending several hours slaving over a batch of cookies only to discover they don’t taste as good as they could have because you didn’t use the best butter, the best cinnamon, or the best vanilla extract. We don’t want you to suffer that kind of disappointment! That’s why we’ve gone ahead and rounded up all the best baking ingredients from our many taste tests. Whether you’re making cake, cookies, or cornbread, here’s the best stuff to buy for your soon-to-be-famous recipe.

Don’t want to bake from scratch? We’ve tasted and ranked the best boxed cake mixes, too.

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Best Corn Meal

Albers Enriched & Degermed Yellow Corn Meal (Harina de Maíz)

Walmart

Sure, you could buy the best cornbread mix and call it a day, but if you’re hell bent on making memaw’s famous corn muffins from scratch, be sure to buy the best cornmeal. Albers has a nice, thick consistency, a rich corn flavor, and it blends well, without too many lumps. We also think this is the best cornmeal for polenta if you want a multipurpose product in your pantry.

Read the full ranking of the best cornmeal

Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Best Butter

Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter with Sea Salt

Amazon

Butter is butter, right? Wrong! Butter might be the most important baking ingredient, and if your recipe calls for the salted variety, Vermont Creamery with Sea Salt is the way to go. It contains 82% butterfat, so it’s ultra rich and creamy. That said, if you need unsalted butter for your recipe, go with our best unsalted butter pick instead. 

Read the full ranking of the best butter

Credit: Merc / Amazon

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Vegan Butter

Country Crock Plant Butter with Olive Oil

Instacart

If you’re veganizing a recipe or simply making it friendlier for your lactose intolerant buddies, subbing in plant-based butter for dairy butter is a good strategy. We tasted a lot of dairy free butter, and loved Country Crock with Olive Oil the best. It’s salty, spreadable, and deliciously rich, perfect for adding to a savory baked good—or slathering on your zucchini bread once it’s out of the oven. 

Read the full ranking of the best vegan butter

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Egg Whites

Bob Evans Cage-Free Egg Whites

Albertsons

No, even cartoned egg whites aren’t created equal. We tried a bunch, and Bob Evans had the best flavor and consistency. Quit cracking eggs and gingerly removing the yolk. Try whipping this up for your next lemon meringue pie or pavlova instead. 

Read the full ranking of the best liquid egg whites

Credit: Merc / Albertsons

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Almond Extract

Morton & Basset Almond Extract

Instacart

A lot of extracts taste like straight-up rubbing alcohol, but Morton & Basset Almond Extract has such a nice, warm flavor that it ended up topping our ranking of the best almond extract. It’s the best for a batch of biscotti. 

Read the full ranking of the best almond extract

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

Best Vanilla Extract

McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract

Instacart

McCormick has a big footprint in the spices-and-extracts aisle, so we’re pleased to report that their vanilla extract is genuinely good. It’s assertive and makes pudding taste like a bowl of melted vanilla ice cream. If you’ve used vanilla extract in the past that left a lingering chemical flavor, try this instead. 

Read the full ranking of the best vanilla extract

Credit: Merc / McCormick

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

Best Ground Cinnamon

Simply Organic Cinnamon

Walmart

When we taste tested this ground cinnamon, we could swear there was sugar in the mix. It’s not just zesty, it’s beautifully sweet, too. But nope. Just cinnamon—really, really good cinnamon. This is what you want to have on hand for homemade snickerdoodles. It’s holiday cheer in a little jar.

Read the full ranking of the best cinnamon

Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Cake Frosting

Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Target

Some people obsess over eating raw cookie dough, but when it comes to forbidden foods, we’re all about going to town on a tub of premade cake frosting. Specifically, we’re obsessed with Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Chocolate Fudge frosting. It’s thick, rich, and tastes like delicious brownie batter. Even if you’re making cake or cupcakes from scratch, this stuff is seriously good enough to make you forego the homemade frosting. 

Read the full ranking of the best cake frosting 

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Target

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Cream Cheese Frosting

Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Cream Cheese Frosting

Instacart

Homemade red velvet cake packed with rich cocoa powder is always going to outdo a boxed red velvet cake mix, but if making cream cheese frosting from scratch is simply too much work, then try Better Crocker’s cream cheese frosting instead. It’s rich and sweet, but it still has that nice, bold cream cheese tang. It’s delicious. Your homemade carrot cake will never be the same.

Read the full ranking of the best cream cheese frosting

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Best Pie Crust

Pillsbury Deep Dish Pie Crusts

Instacart

If you’re baking a pie but simply don’t have the counter space to roll out a bunch of dough, these premade Pillsbury pie crusts are a great shortcut. They come frozen so they stay nice and fresh, and they’re flaky, buttery, and crunchy out of the oven. These are perfect for sweet or savory pies. Pick your pie poison. 

Read the full ranking of the best pie crust

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Gluten Free Pie Crust

Wholly Gluten Free Pie Shells

Instacart

Good news: Pie isn’t off limits to your gluten free friends. These premade pie shells are celiac safe and they still taste really good—light, sugary, and crunchy. Truly, we couldn’t think of a single sweet filling these wouldn’t taste great with. 

Read the full ranking of the the best gluten free pie crust

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Apple Pie Filling

Baker’s Corner More Fruit Apple Pie Filling

If you’re an Aldi shopper, be sure to keep an eye out for this canned apple pie filling. Yes, you can use it in a pie, but it would also be really good with a simple streusel and some vanilla ice cream. Sometimes the best baking ingredients don’t require any baking at all. 

Read the full ranking of the best apple pie filling

Credit: Merc / Aldi

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best Cherry Pie Filling

Kroger Cherry Pie Filling

Ralphs

We love when a store brand tastes better than the name brands. Kroger’s cherry pie filling has big juicy whole cherries and does not taste like fake cherry flavor—it just tastes like sugar and cherries. The cherries are nice and tart, but overall it is still very sweet. Roll out some pastry dough and you’ll have hand pies in no time. 

Read the full ranking of the best cherry pie filling

Credit: Merc / Ralphs

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks