We Tried Wildgrain’s Newest Subscription Box and Were Wildly Impressed with the Results (the Cookies Alone Are Worth It!)
Few things in life bring more joy than a loaf of freshly baked bread. While making one from scratch can be a lovely way to spend an afternoon, most of us simply don’t have that kind of time. But what if we told you you could have fresh bread delivered right to your door?
Enter Wildgrain, the premium bake-from-frozen subscription box service. Not just limited to bread, Wildgrain offers freshly made pasta and pastries sourced from small bakers and pasta makers across the nation. The best part? They take under 30 minutes to bake. All products are par-baked and flash frozen, so all you need to do is pull one out of the freezer (no thawing necessary!) and get to baking. (Our Kitchn team has tried them before and were wildly impressed with the results — pun intended).
In response to growing demand for plant-based meals, Wildgrain released a plant-based box (which, yes, includes its famous croissants!). Naturally, we were curious to try it out and see how these new baked goods stacked up.
What You Should Know About Wildgrain’s Plant-Based Bakery Box
Stroll through the bread aisle in any grocery store, check the label, and you may find fillers, additives, and other ingredients you can’t pronounce. Not at Wildgrain. The company partners with small-batch bakers and pasta makers who use high-quality ingredients, like organic whole wheat flour and extra virgin olive oil — a key measure of a good loaf.
Rhyan Geiger, a registered dietitian and founder of the Phoenix Vegan Dietitian, agrees: “When shopping for bread and pasta, [look for] whole grains to be listed as the top ingredient.” They contain more nutrients, like “B vitamins, zinc, and iron,” Geiger points out, compared with refined grains (i.e. breads made with white flour).
How Does a Wildgrain Subscription Work?
The monthly subscription service typically costs $99 per box with free shipping. Currently, Wildgrain is offering first-time customers $40 off their first box. You can skip, pause, or increase the shipment frequency whenever you want, and even customize your order. (The options are endless.)
Pick from sourdough rosemary garlic loaf, slow-fermented ciabatta sandwich rolls, maple belgian waffles, pappardelle, and more. Plus, you get free plant-based croissants in every box!
Wildgrain’s Plant-Based Bakery Box Subscription
Wildgrain
$59
Buy Now
Our Honest Review of Wildgrain’s Plant-Based Bakery Box
The box arrived with an array of frozen goodies packed with dry ice — all just waiting to be baked. While some items did get a little crushed in transit (croissants, I’m looking at you), everything else was intact. Our plant-based box included a real who’s who of carb-y favorites: plain sourdough loaf, everything sourdough bread, slow-fermented olive oil ciabatta, croissants, pappardelle, potato gnocchi, and giant chocolate chip cookies.
With our freezer filled to the near brim, we spent a few weeks sampling our shares of breads, pastas, and baked goods. It’s one we’d gladly do again.
Plain Sourdough Loaf
Wildgrain’s sourdough loaf was super easy to make — all we did was place it directly on the rack and let the oven do its thing. In fact, the hardest part was waiting for it to cool (which Wildgrain recommends to finish the baking process).
Once the time was done, we dug in, and wow were we impressed! The bread has an audibly crispy, crunchy exterior as you bite into it, yet is pillowy soft and doughy inside. It satisfyingly pulls apart and has that classic sourdough tang. After trying a piece alone, we smeared another with butter. It was so good, you could never tell it was frozen and easily rivals some of the best sourdough loaves we’ve gotten from a bakery or farmers market.
Plant-Based Croissants
Croissants are a labor of love. There’s so much cooling and chilling to get the layers of pastry just right, and sometimes all that work is best left to the experts. Yes, even when your ready-made croissant dough shows up a little smushed in transit (which happened to us!).
The croissants puffed up while in the oven, and a buttery aroma filled the kitchen. (We could almost taste them from the smell alone.) After we pulled one apart, it had an airy structure (full of layers!) with a solid bake on the bottom and a delicious buttery flavor, despite being made with margarine.
Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
It doesn’t take much to make a good chocolate chip cookie — flour, sugar, chocolate — but it takes a little extra oomph to make a great one. And these cookies … Well, they’ve got a ton of oomph. For starters, they’re made with large chocolate chunks (which are far superior to standard chocolate chips) that, when baked, get all melty and chewy. The vanilla and brown sugar flavoring really shines through. They’re excellent.
Though they’re marketed as large chocolate chip cookies, we cut the dough in half to make regular-size cookies so we could share them with our coworkers. Once out of the oven, the kitchen smelled like a bakery (it was so dreamy!) and folks flocked over to give them a try. Even though they’re vegan, they had a warm-buttery taste that we couldn’t get enough of. We’re considering ordering another Wildgrain box for the cookies alone!
Gnocchi
Gnocchi is a top-tier pasta. It’s smooth and pillowy (and almost creamy) thanks to the mashed potatoes while the flour gives it a pasta shape and texture. Sure, any gnocchi can be great with a good pasta sauce, but the real test is how it tastes with just a little oil and salt. So, that’s exactly what we did. We cooked the gnocchi according to the package instructions and tossed in some really good olive oil and flaky salt. DELICIOUS! It added a bit of luxury to an everyday weeknight.
Is Wildgrain Worth It?
As we mentioned above, the box is $99, and yes it is very possible to eat everything in a single month, even if you’re cooking for one or two. For us, getting to enjoy almost homemade bread (and pasta and pastries) will never get stale. It had to be said. Plus, who wouldn’t want to wake up to freshly baked free croissants?
Find it here: Wildgrain’s Plant-Based Bakery Box
Have you tried Wildgrain’s subscription box service? Let us know in the comments.
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