Review: Holiday Pie from McDonald’s
As if you weren’t already sick of the season; between every bit of the mind blowing amount of advertising you are exposed to on an hourly basis throughout all medias to that age-old question ,“What do you want for Christmas?” In general, the over-saturation of the commercialized holiday season with TV specials, gift ideas for that hard to buy for person in your life, those manipulative bell-ringers, toy drives for the less fortunate and growing evidence that Santa is a work of fiction (I still believe, Santa. No matter what the older kids at school say) the seasonal theme extends to your fast food choices as well. Just in time for Christmas I present to you the McDonald’s Holiday Pie.
I will preface this review by stating that I am generally a fan of the baked pies at Mickey D’s. Apple, Cherry, even the Pumpkin Pies around Thanksgiving are all quite tasty. In fact, during my brief stint as an employee there I would mash an apple pie into a McFlurry and cover it with caramel, virtually drowning my outer fat kid with awesome. Maybe my expectations for this pie were too lofty, given that I expected to like it as much as the rest.At first sight it looked innocuous enough, even festive. The sprinkles and vanilla cake colored outer crust brought to mind a sugar cookie or maybe even a birthday cake. Biting into the pie, the crust was crispy and flaky, but having my nose in such close proximity treated me to an unusual odor. The crust and sprinkles smelled of buttercream frosting, and underneath that, the hot custard inside smelled strongly of Play-Doh. Anyone with a childhood in their past or present will know this smell and while not offensive on its own, I would prefer my food smell like food.
The custard was hot with a thick, creamy consistency but that odd smell pervaded and gave the custard an overly processed almost chemical taste. Granted, we are discussing McDonald’s here: the original slinger of processed sustenance; but I was really let down. I refuse to throw myself on the floor kicking and screaming (then again, this is Christmas so maybe I should) but I do have a keyboard and a convenient outlet for my dejection. I was quite disappointed in this item and can only hope they change their custard recipe into something resembling edible foodstuffs.
Pros: Festive "looking". Experimentation will only cost about a buck or less.
Cons: Tastes funny, smells funny.
Taste: 3.50/10
Value: 5.50/10
Grubbing on-the-go: 7.00/10
Price: $0.99
Overall GrubGrade: 3.75/10
More Info: http://www.McDonald's.com
Categories: Desserts, Reviews
Tags: Holiday Pie Review, McDonald's Holiday Pie, McDonald's Holiday Pie Review
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McDonald’s Christmas Commercial from the 1970′s
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I can relate to the custom McFlurries. As a former employee in my teens I enjoyed adding my own toppings such as crushing up the cookies. That of course lead to a broken McFlurry machine one day. I also agree that the holiday pie is the worst of all the McDonald’s pies I encountered.
There is something worse than the Smores Pie? I used to love their pies back in the day when they were FRIED and had the thermal qualities of fresh lava. I was particularly partial to the cherry pie, which they no longer offer.
Nice review. From a purely visual perspective it looks delicious.
The holiday pie is awesome. They should keep it on the menu. It is a good once a week treat.
After massive anticipation, I finally got around to trying a holiday pie. It was honestly better than I thought it would be. The crust and sprinkles were definitely the highlights, although the custard was not bad – no odd taste that I could discern. More than anything, I think I was happy I didn’t miss it and have to wait a year to try one.
Kind of late, but I’m sorry to hear you didn’t like it! The holiday pie is honestly my favorite of McDonald’s pies, though I still really like the apple, s’mores, and strawberry crème ones, whenever the latter two are available. Not a big cherry fan, though that’s unrelated. But yeah, I could eat a bunch of these and not get sick of them for a long time.
I’m eating one now, I think if they changed the filling to one more edible in a fairly large quantity it would be better. It’s like eating hot cake batter, not bad…but not great haha