Review: Panera's 5 New Bakery Items Are A Mixed Bag Of Pastries, Macaroons, And Cake

Panera Bread is always offering novel treats. This summer's new Panera breakfast menu introduced several unique morning-meal sandwiches, and as of August 21, Panera also added five fresh bakery items: an almond pastry, a cherry pastry, a coconut macaroon, a chocolate coconut macaroon, and a seasonal cranberry orange cake. The chain is also bringing back its pumpkin-shaped shortbread cookie for autumn, so these days you're likely to find something to pique your interest at Panera. 

This bakery-cafe enterprise has nearly 2,200 locations in the United States, so if you want to check out these new items, there's a decent chance that a Panera location is in your vicinity. Compared to pricier selections on the Panera menu — like sandwiches or mac and cheese — these pastries are ideal if you want something light, or prefer to spend only a handful of dollars. 

However, while baked goods like these new Panera offers are generally delicious, they also aren't too difficult to locate. You can find similar pastries, cookies, and cake at grocery stores or a local bakery. As a former Panera employee, I was curious to see if Panera's fresh offers stand out, so I tried each of the five new bakery items. I'll discuss the prices, test each taste, and determine if they're worth your money. 

From fruity to nutty, Panera's new products provide a range of baked goods, so you won't be stuck with barely varying iterations of one type of treat. As for the pastries, both the almond and cherry options are made with a flaky and buttery dough, and are drizzled with icing similarly to Danishes. The two kinds of macaroons are made with coconut batter and cocoa-infused coconut batter, and each are dipped in chocolate. Meanwhile, the cranberry orange cake is the only new offering that is seasonal, and won't be added to the permanent menu. It comes in slices of a loaf-shaped confection, and features whole cranberries and sour cream.  

You can view these new offers on the Panera website, or on the app in the Bakery or What's New sections, though the cranberry orange cake is found in the Limited Time Only section. Click on each individual product to learn about nutrition facts and ingredients, or to add the item to your order. These goodies range in size and taste to offer a variety of options catering to various preferences, but they all were likely planned to pair well with a morning cup of coffee or hot tea. 

According to a Panera representative, each of these new bakery items has a suggested price of $3.89, but costs may vary depending on your city or state. At my nearby Panera location in the San Diego area, the almond and cherry pastries each cost $4.99, the cranberry orange cake slice is $4.49, and the macaroons cost $1.99, though three of the cookies are offered for $4.99. 

Panera is rolling out these releases nationwide, so if the new baked goods aren't already stocked at your nearest location, they will likely be there soon. These selections should now appear on the Panera app menu, or just walk into a store to glimpse them on display, and if they're sufficiently tempting, you can order them on self-serve kiosks or directly from the cashier. However, the reintroduced seasonal pumpkin cookie is only available at participating locations, so depending on where you live, this offer may be more of a trick than a treat. 

Nonetheless, certain locations are currently sweetening the deal by providing a 50% discount on a bakery treat with the purchase of a drink and a Spicy Fiesta Chicken Sandwich — which is one of Panera's new spicy sandwiches and avocado toast offers introduced this summer. With this combo, Panera is hoping to give customers a fresh taste of popular "swicy" foods that remain in demand from coast to coast. 

Ideal for almond enjoyers, this pastry has a golden-brown appearance due to the baked dough and the almond-slice topping. It also has almond filling and a drizzle of white icing. The pastry dough is flaky and crisp, with the underside being firmer than the inner portion, which is moistened by the almond filling. The filling's texture is soft and sweet, like almond paste, but it also contains grainy, visible bits of nuts. 

This pastry might be worth a shot if you like creamy almond confections, but are not a fan of standard marzipan. With its prominent almond flavor, a delicate paste-like filling, and crusty dough, this pastry provides textural equilibrium — unlike marzipan, a uniformly soft and sweet paste made from almond flour, powdered sugar, and egg yolks. 

The almond pieces seem balanced throughout the pastry, rather than concentrated in one area. There's a good ratio of almond and filling to this pastry, and although this treat is quite sweet on the tongue, there is flavor symmetry between the buttery dough and the nutty component of the almonds. Panera's almond pastry has 480 calories, 28 grams of fat, 50 grams of carbohydrates, 21 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.

Panera's cherry pastry has the same dough component as the almond option, with a visibly flaky, layered crust. However, the cherry topping seems consolidated in the center, with considerably more dough than cherry content. The photo on the Panera website shows actual pieces of cherries in the topping, but my pastry didn't seem to have any cherry chunks, only tiny fragments of what could be cherry skin. The ingredient list doesn't specify which of the types of cherries are used here, but this is overall a lighter selection than the almond pastry, having 340 calories, 14 grams of fat, 48 grams of carbohydrates, 22 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of protein. 

Panera used to have a cherry pastry on the menu, so this seems like a revamped version. The previous one had topping that was more neon red, with visible cherry pieces. The topping on this new version has a darker color, and the new pastry's quality seems better than what I remember from the previous version.

The new cherry pastry's dough is delectable and buttery, with a sweet fruit center and icing drizzle. While the almond pastry had a nuttiness to round out its sugary qualities, this cherry pastry has multiple layers of sweetness coming from the dough, filling, and icing. Cherry chunks would have provided a welcome pop of texture and tartness. 

For an autumnal dessert, try Panera's cranberry orange cake. Each portion is a thick slice containing whole cranberries and an orangey citrus taste. Panera's online description of this item claims that it contains sour cream and is sprinkled with coarse sugar, but these elements aren't too noticeable. I didn't find the coarse sugar sprinkled on top, even after closely examining the cake. If it was present, the sugar was not as crunchy and pronounced as it seems in the photo on Panera's website. 

This cake is very citrus-forward, with tartness from the orange flavor and the cranberries, and probably the sour cream. However, it's important to note that the cake contains only a natural orange oil flavor, so it's made without any orange pieces, juice, or zest. The cranberries are tender yet slightly chewy, contrasting nicely with the cake's overall softness. The texture is moist and dense, but spongy, feeling almost wet to the touch. If you press it between your fingers, it makes a squelching sound familiar from mixing wet ingredients. 

Overall, this is a hefty piece of cake with a light citrus smell. While sweet, the tanginess and orange taste come through the most. Panera's new cake slice has 360 calories, 13 grams of fat, 53 grams of carbohydrates, 32 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

The photo of this item on the Panera website didn't clearly show the scale of the macaroon, so it ended up being smaller than expected. This makes sense, since the price was $1.99 compared to the bigger pastries, but it still was a surprise that this is bite-sized. This might be an item to skip if you have sensitive gums, as the desiccated coconut was scraping my mouth. 

Panera's coconut macaroon is dense, with a crispy, golden-brown exterior and a slightly more moist, white interior. It has the classic aroma of warm and toasted coconut, which is enhanced by the addition of vanilla and almond extract. Each coconut macaroon has 190 calories, 10 grams of fat, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 20 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

The bottom half of this cookie is coated in chocolate, and since coconut macaroons don't always have this feature, this can be a hit or miss based on your personal fondness. This chocolate is sweet, but not cloying. If you are buying this with aesthetics in mind, opt for this macaroon over the brown one made with cocoa-infused batter, since the chocolate dip's color is more perceptible on this plain version. 

Panera's chocolate macaroon has a few differences compared to the plain coconut one. It's completely brown in color, with no easily perceptible variance in hues, though you can see some lighter brown flecks of coconut peeking through. The cocoa taste is noticeable throughout the macaroon instead of just the chocolate portion, which makes it an ideal dessert if you love chocolate. The extra chocolate content offsets the coconutty element, so this variety has a more well-rounded flavor, and is also noticeably softer than the other macaroon option — although the nutritional content is essentially similar, with this version having 190 calories, 10 grams of fat, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 19 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

The outer portion remains spongy, without the gum-scraping quality of the plain coconut macaroon. The chocolate-dipped portion is essentially similar — lightly dipped, and not overly sweet. The amount of chocolate dip seems to vary with each macaroon. Hypothetically, when ordering from the cashier, you can point to the one with the most chocolate, if that's what you like. 

While it's always nice to patronize local bakeries, you can walk in into any Panera and know what to expect. That said, some things missed the mark with these new baked goods. Generally, the flavors were fine, but there were multiple issues with the actual items not appearing as portrayed in Panera's promotional materials, like the missing fruit pieces in the cherry pastry's topping, or the lack of course sugar on the cranberry orange loaf cake. Maybe this was a fluke, but it's not the first time that my Panera items didn't look the way they seemed in promo photos. 

Speaking of the cake slice, it would've been nice if that contained real orange instead of orange flavor, which could be achieved with orange juice like in this glazed cranberry bread recipe. It was also oddly moist. 

I'm a big fan of almonds, so the almond pastry is my top pick, not only because of the flavor but also because the quality seemed like something from a local bakery. It was buttery, nutty, and not too hard or soft. I also like coconut and chocolate, so both macaroons were delightful, although the plain one was a bit scratchy. The cherry pastry would've been great with actual cherry pieces in the filling. It all boils down to the operational quality of your local Panera, which may factor into producing baked goods that look as good as they do on the website.