I Bought The Viral Whole Foods Brown Butter Cake For My Birthday—Here’s My Honest Review

Brown butter is a baker’s dream. Browning butter may seem like a chore, but this key step makes a world-changing difference in the taste of desserts. It adds dimension to any staple sweet treat, incorporating a fun hint of nuttiness.

So, it makes sense why brown butter is everywhere, from viral coffee drinks to supermarket desserts. Whole Foods is the latest food retailer embracing the trend with its Brown Butter Cookie Caramel Crunch Cake (say that three times fast). The cake has gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms, with users urging people to try the cake for themselves.

“It’s just like their {Whole Foods} cookies and cream, but instead of Oreos they use their brown butter chocolate chip cookies that everybody loves so much,” user @birdg98 shared in her TikTok video.

“Now why would you post this?! I’m finna go in there right now smh,” one person commented. “I love the Whole Foods dessert section, everything is bomb,” another pointed out.

Does The Brown Butter Cake Live Up To The Hype?

I have a serious sweet tooth, so I don’t need much pressure to try a new dessert. During the week of my 25th birthday recently (shoutout to my Aquariuses!), I journeyed to Whole Foods to taste the cake. Brown butter is already a prong on my cooking tool belt—I use it in my favorite muffin recipes and in my homemade sweet potato pie during Thanksgiving to wow my family and friends. I wanted to see if the Whole Foods Brown Butter Cookie Caramel Crunch Cake matched, missed the mark, or exceeded my expectations.

Details of the actual cake sound like a sweetness overload. It’s a classic chocolate cake enveloped in layers of sweet buttercream and caramel. Then, it’s decorated with a thick layer of creamy caramel and crumbles of Whole Foods’ signature brown cutter chocolate chip cookie. This is the type of cake that you only devour once in a while, because it’s so rich. It’s the type of cake you eat after a long hard day to spoil yourself.

I call myself a brown butter connoisseur, and this cake accurately matched my expectations. Off the first bite, the buttery caramel hits your tastebuds and joyously rocks your world. But it pairs so well with the brown butter flavor, enhancing the toastiness and nuttiness of the cake. Chocolate and caramel are an undefeated combo, so the chocolate cake base was a perfect pairing. To top it off, the sweet butter cream was light and airy so it didn’t overpower the flavor of the caramel and brown butter.

Bottom line: Usually, I happily black out when it comes to eating a good cake. But this cake left me feeling satisfied after just one slice. Overall, I highly recommend this cake—it combines a lot of complex flavors including caramel, brown butter cookies and chocolate to create a sweet symphony. I see why it’s been been making a statement on social media and causing a frenzy of sold out cakes in Whole Foods locations across the country.