The McCafe brand has been an undeniable success for McDonald’s all around the globe. Its expanded coffee offerings have allowed the company to keep up with Starbucks with the added benefit of establishing a retail brand visible in the coffee aisle of grocery stores.
You can pull up to the drive-thru speaker and order a large, iced, non-fat Caramel Macchiato with an extra shot of espresso, hazelnut syrup, a chocolate drizzle, and whipped cream while also getting a McNuggets Happy Meal with a Buzz Lightyear toy for your kid. But if you ever craved a treat to accompany your obnoxiously complex McCafe drink, you were usually left with the choice of a handheld apple pie or a rather uninspiring chocolate chip cookie.
McDonald’s has wisely decided to expand its once meager baked goods selection by introducing the McCafe Blueberry Muffin, Apple Fritter, and Cinnamon Roll.
The Blueberry Muffin comes surrounded by a lovely tulip-style muffin wrapper to help distract from the fact that it was handed to me in the same bag as a packet of tangy bbq sauce. The muffin is adorned with a streusel crumb topping and a sprinkling of crystallized sugar that adds a really nice, subtle crunch when consuming.
It is very tender and moist with somewhat sparse but delicious blueberries mixed throughout. There is a slight aftertaste of either a preservative or artificial flavor that I find common in boxed blueberry muffin mixes. While I would have to say that it is borderline too sweet for a blueberry muffin, I think the texture and overall flavor make it a nice addition to McDonald’s menu.
Apple Fritters are never much to look, and the McCafe offering is no exception. It’s a brown, bumpy mound with a glazed outside that gives way to a dense center with abundant swirls of cinnamon. When biting in, you instantly get the warm cinnamon filling your mouth, followed closely by the tart apple flavor.
The light icing adds just the right amount of sweetness, and the dense but tender texture is perfect for a fritter. As one of my favorite treats, I love an apple fritter to have a crispy edge, which this did not. It could also benefit from more abundant apple pieces. But this is the treat I’ll be craving next time I pull into the drive-thru.
The Cinnamon Roll looks the part, served warm with deep valleys of sugar and cinnamon in between the swirled dough and enough cream cheese icing to run down the sides but not flooding the entire roll with an overwhelming sweetness. From the moment I first tried to cut off a piece, I could tell that the outside had gotten tough, no doubt from being reheated.
Perhaps it once had that ideal slightly doughy, gooey center, but lost it in the microwave, sacrificed for the sake of quick service. It is a real shame that the texture is too tough because the cinnamon flavor and the cream cheese frosting are spot on, with the overall level of sweetness being just right. As a big fan of McDonald’s Cinnamon Melts, I can’t help but wish the company just revived it instead because it is a far superior product.
Purchased Price: $1.99 (Blueberry Muffin), $2.19 (Apple Fritter), $2.49 (Cinnamon Roll)
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Blueberry Muffin), 9 out of 10 (Apple Fritter), 5 out of 10 (Cinnamon Roll)
Nutrition Facts: Blueberry Muffin – 470 calories, 22 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 360 milligrams of sodium, 64 grams of carbohydrates, 36 grams of sugar, 2 grams of fiber, and 6 grams of protein. Apple Fritter – 510 calories, 29 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 360 milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of carbohydrates, 28 grams of sugar, 3 grams of fiber, and 5 grams of protein. Cinnamon Roll – 560 calories, 17 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 490 milligrams of sodium, 92 grams of carbohydrates, 46 grams of sugar, 8 grams of fiber, and 9 grams of protein.
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Pretty much exactly the review I was expecting. Thanks!
8 grams of fiber for the cinnamon roll? Pleasantly surprised but probably a misprint.
Thanks for the thorough review.
You only mention reheating with the Cinnamon Roll: do you think they all were reheated/prepared at the same time, with only the Cinnamon Roll being negatively affected? Or do you think you got a “fresh” (or non/less-reheated) Muffin and Fritter (meaning they could be worse if re-heated) and a re-heated Roll (meaning it could be better if “fresh”)?
Apple fritters are nature’s way of telling you to stop eating fritters because you ran out of cherry fritters.
Also, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat the blueberry muffin now that you said it’s wrapped in a tulip. For over a decade I lived in a place where they have to impose fines for killing tulips, and where a radio station in the nearest major city used to run a promo where they’d line tulips up next to the lake and hand out golf clubs.
So this is for people in carpools who everyone else wants a McDonald’s breakfast right? I don’t think outside of you review people someone would want to go there for these items. Nice review as always!
McCafe? More like a poor man’s cafe.
The sodium and calories are beyond normal. My Grannie made all this stuff with a pinch of salt as a preservative. Fresh fruit. I are a lot of them, sure wouldn’t gain weight eating her muffins and other sweets. Eat fresh eggs and pancakes for breakfast!
A fritter needs to be relatively fresh or it’s worthless. Gotta have those crispy edges!
Damn, I miss those cinnamelts too.
Yeah, I’m a fan of the Cinnamelts as well. I was pissed when they were discontinued.
If they were smart they’d bring back the retro cheese danish, those were just tops.
I had the same issue with the cinnamon roll. It was tough (even though I didn’t microwave it). I also thought the frosting was too sweet; I was surprised it was a cream cheese frosting, because to me, it tasted just like standard frosting.
Thee cinnamon roll WAS tough from reheating, and the price is a JOKE . Much too small for a $2.49 price. It’s supposed to be MCDONALDS. Not expensive! I’m not cheap , but you can get one that’s better most anywhere
I tried the blueberry muffin and I was surprised at how good it was. I especially like the crunch of the sugar. Thank you for the review!
I tried the fritter, and it was basically just what I hoped for as far as it did not disappoint at all. Simply a very good fritter. Not any better than that, but no ‘no bad for McDonalds’ flaws.
My only issue with it is the price, $2.69.
That’s double what a local place down the street sells a just as good, bigger fritter for.
At ourMc Donalds they usw to carry the Costco brand (or it tasted like it) of muffins, choice of orange cranberry, and blueberry, with real fruit. These new muffins are so bad ,all I taste is chemicals from the artificial ‘berries”
The apple fritter is way overpriced and less than a good eating experience. Bought an apple fritter from Dunkin’ Donuts the other day. Far superior and reasonably priced. Apples were very present
as compared to McDonald’s
Love Apple fritters but this has no resemblance to a real Apple fritter. Took one bite and threw the rest away. Empty calories with no redeeming quality
I agree. I love apple fritters as well, and these were only average, maybe even slightly below.
I just tried the McDonald’s roll and I could barely get through it. The “drizzle” on top was so thick and sugary that I had to scrap it off with a napkin, but it didn’t stop there; the cinnamon glop between the layers was also much thicker and more sugary than what you find in better cinnamon rolls, so I ended up unrolling it and mopping up as much of that as I could. Still, this thing was too big and way too sugary; finishing it made me feel a little dirty. What happened to the apple and cheese danish McDonald’s used to serve in the 1980s, the ones that were heated by a blast of steam before they served them? Those were wonderful and reasonably priced. The current rolls are grossly inferior to something I could buy at Wall Mart for 1/5 the price ( the apple fritters are not much better) and just one more reason to avoid McDonald’s dire breakfast menu.
Blueberry muffin was bad. Toppli.g look like struestal but was hard sugar?