Ranking Every Lidl Pastry & Bread

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Lidl is a German-based grocery store chain

that is popping up in neighborhoods

all over the United States.

They keep their prices low

with their minimalist no-frill stores

and by centrally producing baked goods

that are finished locally.

They're getting a ton of hype about their pastry items.

People say they love them and they're insanely cheap,

but am I gonna love them?

We're gonna find out today.

I'm a professional pastry chef

and I have baked everything under the sun.

I went to Lidl and got almost their entire pastry case.

Let's see what Lidl can do.

This is Lidl's butter croissant and it is only 50 cents.

One of the things that we look for in pastry

is something called Bien Cuit,

which is a French term for well-baked.

Traditional French pastries go a little bit darker

because you wanna get that sort of like delicious,

baked, almost toasty flavor to it.

This doesn't look that dark,

but it's also not the most blonde thing I've ever seen.

What I look for in a good croissant

is that I want a flaky exterior.

You almost want it to shatter when you touch it,

you kind of squish it a little bit.

You should hear that more sort of crunchy sound.

There isn't a ton of crunchy sound in this.

And then when I open it,

what I'm looking for is something called honeycombing.

There isn't a ton of honeycombing in it.

It's almost as though it's a little bit raw inside

so it's kind of undercooked.

You shouldn't be able to do this,

like pull out pieces of raw dough.

Okay, it kind of tastes like buttery toast.

It's not that kind of croissant complexity.

That being said, it's 50 cents

where a croissant from a bakery

would be anywhere from four to five or six dollars.

Even at 50 cents, I give this a C.

This is Lidl's jelly donut that sells for 99 cents.

Just by appearance alone, it looks really nice.

It's fluffy.

It looks like it's been fried pretty evenly on all sides.

And you can see the little like boop boop.

They've got two injections of jelly.

Hopefully, that means it's got a good amount of filling.

I'm a total filling girl.

I want there to be a lot of filling, so I hope.

Okay.

There's no filling.

There's literally no filling.

I'm gonna break it the other way.

Let's see.

Oh, there we go.

Okay.

If I were to divide this donut into four quadrants,

two have filling.

So that's not great.

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Okay.

It tastes like the kind of peanut butter and jelly jelly

that you would get as a kid.

Well, you're not sure if it's raspberry or strawberry,

but it's like red, so it's red jelly.

The donut itself is well cooked inside.

There's no raw parts and the taste is okay.

But if I want a jelly donut, I want that first word jelly

to be in the donut and this really doesn't do that.

So for that alone, this gets a D.

This is Lidl's German pretzel for 99 cents.

One of the fan favorites.

I'm a huge pretzel fan.

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Hmm, this is really good.

I'm used to pretzels that have salt on them,

but if we put some salt on here,

this could be a good vessel for cheese, mustard.

It's really good and it tastes like a pretzel.

This is so close to being our first A if it had salt on it,

but because of that, B.

This is Lidl's chocolate donut.

It sells for 99 cents.

99 cents feels like a good price for a donut, I think.

The size looks good

and the amount of chocolate on top looks really nice.

They don't see like they're skimping

or being very cheap with that.

A donut is all in the flavor.

I kind of don't care what it looks like

as long as it tastes amazing and not super oily.

So fingers crossed.

This donut is pretty light, which is nice.

It's got a nice texture inside.

Hmm.

It's actually really good.

I'm kind of surprised that I would say that.

It hasn't taken on a lot of oil, which is really nice.

And the flavor of the chocolate

kind of reminds you of donuts that you ate as a kid.

So for that alone, I give this donut a B.

This is a chocolate croissant or pain au chocolate,

and it's 99 cents,

which again is really on the inexpensive side

for a laminated pastry with chocolate in it.

At first glance, not that excited.

The top of a croissant

or a pain au chocolate should be kind of shiny.

It should have

just this like really beautiful reflective texture.

And this one doesn't really have that.

It's kind of flat

and I wanna see again that crunchy exterior.

I want it to kind of shatter

and then it wants to open into this beautiful soft pastry.

This is kind of all soft pastry.

There's no shatter.

I'm pulling pretty hard

and okay, that's not a great sign for a croissant.

Inside, I am really hoping for honeycombing.

I want there to be a really beautiful texture.

And this really looks more like bread.

What's nice is you get two batons of chocolate.

So you're getting kind of double chocolate,

which in most high-end bakeries you're gonna see.

This tastes like bread with bitter chocolate.

And even if I were looking for a piece of bread,

this wouldn't be it.

This gets an F.

Plain New York bagel, 79 cents.

Very dangerous to call something New York to a New Yorker

who eats bagels all the time.

We are gonna be very critical of this bagel.

When you're eating a bagel,

you don't want it to just be like bread.

You want it to be a little chewy.

You wanna fight with it a little bit.

Remember when you're a kid and you have to do one of those

like sports races or something like that at school

and at the end everybody gets a bagel

in a little plastic bag?

That's what this tastes like.

It's not horrible,

but it's definitely not the level of taste or flavor

that you're looking for in a New York bagel.

But all things considered, it's not bad.

The color is good.

The texture is good and the price is not bad.

I would give this a B.

My New Yorker friends are going to come after me,

but it's not bad.

This is their chocolate chunk cookie.

It's only 89 cents.

I love chewy.

I don't want it to be crispy.

I don't want it to be thin.

Ratio standpoint looks pretty good

in terms of cookie versus chocolate.

Wow, that is really sweet.

Some people online

say that there's a bit of a chemical taste to this cookie.

I could see that.

I love chocolate chip cookies.

This probably wouldn't be a cookie that I would go for.

I would give this cookie

because of its sort of chemical taste a D.

Whoo, flying oatmeal raisin cookie for 89 cents.

I do not like raisins.

And if you're a bad grape,

they take all the liquid out of you.

They change your name and they call you raisin.

But that being said, smells really good.

Outside is lovely.

I love a craggy cookie.

I like it to not be uniform

and there's not that many raisins, which I love,

but obviously, somebody who buys a raisin cookie

probably wants more than this in terms of raisins.

And I promise you, I'm gonna eat a raisin.

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This cookie also has a little bit

of that same chemical taste

as the chocolate chip cookie did.

I would give this cookie a D

and I think that's kind of being generous.

This is an apple turnover.

It retails for 99 cents.

This pastry gets a lot of love online.

There's a lot of filling on the inside,

which is really nice.

So I think you're gonna get apple in every bite,

which I'm pretty excited about.

Hmm, this is nice.

The apples are still a little crunchy.

I love to have different textures in pastry.

It's a little bit different than traditional apple pie.

In America, we use a lot of like cinnamon and nutmeg

and clove and all of those sort of spices

and this doesn't really have that.

This is just really sweet apple.

The pastry itself isn't great.

It's a little kind of bready

and not as buttery as I would like.

Because the apples are a little bit crunchy,

because it seems like a really nice size in terms of value,

I would give this a C.

I'm told this is a cinnamon roll for 1.49.

It doesn't look like a cinnamon roll

and it makes me kind of sad.

Cinnamon rolls are heaven.

They should be pillowy

and just bursting with this like cinnamon color,

cinnamon flavor.

Maybe it's the American in me,

but I love there to be a glaze or a frosting on top.

This does not have any of that.

You can see that it just looks really sort of like doughy.

It's not good.

Don't buy it, F.

This is Lidl's blueberry muffin and it is $1.59.

This looks like a great blueberry muffin.

It's got a nice size to it.

I can smell the blueberries.

I can smell a little bit of lemon or citrus,

which I love with blueberries.

Ooh, got a lot of blueberries, which is nice.

And as I tour it open, it smells really fruity,

a very good sign.

This is very moist, really good texture.

It's not dry.

It's quite nice.

Lots of blueberry flavor,

something that would be really nice

with coffee in the morning.

I give this a B.

Strawberry cream cheese Danish, 99 cents.

It doesn't look very fresh to me.

Pastries really have to be fresh.

They have to be vibrant.

It should have

just this like really beautiful reflective texture.

And this one doesn't really have that.

There is a fair amount of filling in here, which is nice.

You want there to be a lot of filling in a Danish.

The sweetness of the cheese

and the fruit should balance nicely with the pastry.

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It's very sour.

Maybe it's a cream cheese.

I don't think cream cheese is sour though, is it?

This is sour, D.

Tomato olive focaccia, $1.99.

With the focaccia, my number one fear

is that it's gonna be dry.

You want it to just be pillowy and delicious

and full of complexity and flavor.

I'm not going to lie, these look like capers.

I don't think they are olives.

That's not great.

Those tomatoes are really sour.

The focaccia tastes under baked.

And there's no seasoning on here,

so there's like no salt or any kind of flavoring

except for the brininess of the capers,

which doesn't really help this focaccia.

I give this an F.

Lidl, do better.

Lidl has bread.

This is their classic baguette and it is a $1.99.

I like to break a baguette open with my hands.

I think that kind of gives a sense

of the crustiness on the outside.

But if I do the civilized thing and cut it,

it cuts nicely and it gives a nice cross section.

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This reminds me of Italian bread.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like that fatter, softer loaf?

This kind of a baguette I would buy for sandwiches

and then maybe toast it.

So I would maybe use this more as a vessel

than I would as a standalone bread.

It's not giving you a lot of flavor or personality.

And for that, I give it a D.

So I grabbed a German sourdough loaf.

It retails for $4.99,

which is the most expensive thing that we're trying today.

So Germans are known for their heartier breads.

So my guess is this is probably gonna be

one of the standout items.

It looks beautiful.

It smells like toasted bread,

kind of how sourdough would smell.

I'm just going to break it open.

There we go.

This sourdough has got a really beautiful color

and texture to the inside.

It's very dense, very crusty outside,

which is awesome and I love and it's what you expect.

It's kind of what you expect from all their breads.

This is a good sourdough.

It's a little wet.

Maybe it's under baked.

I don't know.

It's got a good flavor.

This is something I would toast for sure.

Maybe using a sandwich or something, but I'd give it a C.

Okay, that literally felt like football.

Walnut bread, $3.99.

Having nuts in bread is a very European phenomenon

so this should hopefully be yummy.

It cuts easier than the sourdough.

I smell the walnuts.

You can kind of see that it's very, again, wet inside.

Not great.

I don't really want wet bread.

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Tastes like raw dough.

It's like they use too much liquid in the dough itself.

F.

This is the pastel de nata or the egg tart.

People on Reddit seem to love it, but will I?

This is a pastry that exists in a lot of different cultures,

most notably in Portuguese culture

and in certain parts of Asia.

It is a flaky crust

and inside, it's filled with an egg custard.

The egg custard looks a little scrambled,

which is the thing that you kind of wanna avoid

when you're making egg custards.

You want it to be super smooth.

There's quite a bit of variation in texture here

probably because the eggs got a little scrambled.

The crust is really soft and it's uncooked.

So that's not great.

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This is kind of a miss

and it's possible that it was an off day,

but for me it's an F.

This is a cheese twist and it's a $1.19.

It says cheese.

We looked up the ingredients.

It's in fact Gouda cheese powder.

So it was Gouda cheese in a previous life

and now it's powder.

Kind of a red flag.

It almost looks like it's egg inside,

but that might be the powder having melted

into the dough itself.

Doesn't really smell like Gouda.

That means it's no Gouda.

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No.

Hmm, no.

The spray cheese you're talking about, shh, shh.

That spray cheese, that's what's in here.

I'm not even kidding.

F.

This is a croissant donut for $1.19.

In the tradition of cronut or dossants,

this is croissant dough

that is shaped like a donut and fried.

It's kind of raw inside, so it was fried quickly.

A cronut or a croissant donut or dossant

typically will go for anywhere from like five

to eight or nine dollars

and that's because it has to be done really well.

This was not done that way.

It is part of the reason why it's $1.19.

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Don't do it, F.

It's pizza.

That's the name of it.

It's with peppers and onions.

It's $1.79.

So this again flies in the sensibility

of any New Yorker like the bagel.

I live in New York.

We're very particular about what we want out of pizza.

I think the Germans probably want something else.

It just smells like onions.

Kind of almost looks like pita bread,

not really a crust of any kind.

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The crust is not really a crust.

It's more like kind of a cardboard base.

Lidl is good for so many things,

but if you can find your pizza elsewhere,

find your pizza elsewhere.

It's not pizza.

Sorry, Lidl, F.

Raisin custard swirl, 99 cents.

It's very soft and in something like this,

you want there to be a little bit more crunch.

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Lots of reasons.

A little bit of custard.

It's just kind of meh.

There's nothing wrong with it,

but there's nothing great about it.

Pastry should be great.

You should put it in your mouth and be so happy.

Like you just wanna be alone with it.

This isn't making me happy.

D.

Lidl loves a donut.

So this is a cinnamon roll donut and it is 99 cents.

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The glaze with the fried dough is actually not bad.

I don't get a lot of cinnamon flavor in there,

but the dough itself being fried

is probably one of the better cooked items

that we've had today.

So it's actually not that bad.

So if you told me this was just fried dough,

I'd give it a B.

But it's supposed to be a cinnamon roll fried dough,

it's a C.

Maple pecan pastry, 99 cents.

So I grew up in Northern Michigan.

We used to tap our own maple trees for maple syrup.

So I'm a huge, huge fan of maple.

It has that sort of nostalgic flavor for me.

It is super cute.

You can see the pecans on top from the color and the shine.

You can see that they used probably an egg wash

or they maybe put a little bit of nappage

or a simple syrup onto it afterwards.

Already you can see that it's flaky.

Some of the flakes are coming off.

So that's a really good sign.

I want flaky pastry to be flaky and be your name, you know?

And it sounds flaky when I rip it apart.

So that's also a really good sign.

Can you tell I'm totally rooting for this?

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Hmm, this is pretty good.

The maple flavor's not super strong.

I would love it to have more maple flavor.

In all fairness, maple's really expensive.

So my guess is this is maple flavoring of some kind,

but overall, it's not bad.

At this point, I'd give it a B.

Chocolate vanilla twist, 99 cents, and it's a seasonal item.

This looks to me like a brioche suisse or a pain suisse,

a pastry that takes a dough

and puts a pastry cream and chocolate chips in.

You roll it, you twist it, you kind of make it into a shape,

and then you bake it.

You can see inside all the little baby chocolate chips

and the pastry cream.

This is actually one of my favorite pastries in general.

It's not that easy to make

because you wanna try to maintain the pastry cream

in the pastry and not have it all kind of bleed

into the dough.

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Well, it's not bad.

It's a lot of pastry cream, a lot of chocolate.

And the dough is okay.

It's flaky, it's soft.

It's cooked well throughout.

I would give this a B.

And honestly, I'm eating more Bs today

than I thought I would.

It's pretty good.

Last but not least, another donut.

This is the old-fashioned glazed donut

and it is also 99 cents.

Let's see.

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So you remember that wet dough situation

that we were talking about?

We're kind of back there with this.

It's very dense, which means it probably didn't rise enough.

It wasn't given enough time

and it just really tough and doughy inside.

The flavor itself has potential to be really good.

The execution just is off.

And because of that,

gosh, you know, I'm kind of torn between a C and a D

because the flavor could be really good.

C.

Overall, pretty even spread of grades.

There was some hits, there was some misses,

but I think for the value,

Lidl, I can see why people love you.

I might come back for that pretzel.

If you're obsessed with Lidl pastries,

tell us which ones are your favorites.

Let us know in the comments.

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