12 Beloved McDonald’s Desserts We Wish Would Return

Sweet foods have always been a part of human history, dating back even to the Neanderthals. But today, with dessert being an integral part of society, it takes on a much different meaning than it did for our ancient ancestors. For them, things like dates and honey offered the sweetness they craved. Modern takes on dessert are a little different. With the advent of processed sugar some 2,500 years ago, desserts became more intricate in their recipes aside from the single ingredients our ancestors ate to curb their sweet tooth.

These days, fast food restaurants can be the best way for busy people to get that quick and easy sugar fix. McDonald’s serves over 68 million people every single day, and many of those consumers are bound to snack on a McDonald’s dessert. At any given time, a particular restaurant offers anywhere from 10 to 15 dessert product offerings, but what about those that are no longer served? Over the years, McDonald’s desserts have come and gone. And now, we’re exploring 12 that we wish we could bring back.

Over 400 million M&M’s are produced every single day and have been sold since their initial release back in 1941. And the candy has been a part of some historical moments in our global history, including being sold exclusively to the U.S. military during WWII. Why? Well, M&M’s had a heat-resistant outer coating that made them less likely to melt. They were great options for soldiers’ rations as they were stationed around the globe, sometimes in less-than-ideal conditions.

As time went on, the M&M’s team thought to introduce new variations on the product, thus the birth of the Peanut M&M in 1954. While Peanut M&M’s haven’t surpassed the popularity of the original M&M, they were popular enough to be included in a partnership to fill the McDonald’s McFlurry. There isn’t much information about when the Peanut M&M McFlurry was on the menu, but it didn’t last and is no longer around. And despite problems with McDonald’s regular M&M McFlurry and some concerns from the candy’s parent company, Mars Inc., this classic version is still available.

Love a cinnamon roll or any variation of it? Thank Sweden and Germany. The kanelbullar is the Swedish classic, and the schnecken is the German version that many think modern cinnamon rolls come from. While American versions of cinnamon rolls tend to be sweeter and topped with frosting or a glaze, the yeasty, warm, spicy taste is familiar. And Cinnabon, which was founded in 1985, helped catapult these treats into the zeitgeist. There are even ways to make canned cinnamon rolls taste like they were made from scratch.

So it’s not a leap to think that the doughy, gooey sweetness of cinnamon rolls took people’s taste buds by storm. McDonald’s likely thought so too when it released its version with Cinnamelts. This concoction was first introduced in 2007, though the time it was phased out entirely is hard to determine. But fans are passionate about the food item — so much so that a petition for its return was created eight years ago and still has signees today. McDonald’s eventually brought a similar product to restaurants with its cinnamon rolls, but we’ll get to those later.

Where did brownies originate? Well, that’s complicated. As with any recipe, it can be hard to trace the exact time and person who first created something or inspired it. But one prevailing theory comes from Chicago, featuring a socialite and the 1893 World’s Fair. It’s said that Bertha Palmer had been staying at The Palmer House Hotel during the fair and asked the hotel pastry chef to make an easily transportable dessert. The result was a fudgy, chocolatey dessert.

No matter who created brownies, they became popular across the country and the globe, especially with the advent of instant brownie mixes, which required merely the incorporation of wet ingredients into pre-measured dry mix. McDonald’s took that love for brownies and applied the same thinking to them as it did the Cinnamelts: Make them ooey and gooey. The resulting Brownie Melts from McDonald’s had a warm chocolate center and a drizzle of icing on top, but they were discontinued sometime between 2009 and 2010.

According to McDonald’s, its restaurants are a “place where lifelong memories are made with grandma.” For that reason, in 2024, the company decided to produce what they coined the Grandma McFlurry. The base is McDonald’s classic vanilla ice cream with the flavor of a candy we might find at the bottom of our grandparent’s bag: butterscotch. Butterscotch-flavored syrup and butterscotch crumbles round out the McFlurry.

Though we can’t say for sure that it reminded anyone of their grandmother, reviewers found the resulting dessert good and that it did its job in evoking emotions of warmth and happy memories. Lucky fans in New York City were even able to get a free taste of the McFlurry from the Grandma’s McFlurry Mobile, which also stopped at senior centers and assisted living facilities. For a few weeks in May and June of 2024, it was available for a very limited time, but McDonald’s has released no plans to bring it back.

Yes, you heard us right. McDonald’s apple pies used to be deep-fried just like its crispy French fries. Back in 1968, McDonald’s introduced a handheld version of apple pie. It was in a shape similar to a Hot Pocket and was McDonald’s very first dessert menu item. The exterior was crispy and flaky, while the interior had that quintessential buttery cinnamon flavor and the sweetness of apple. Sadly, it didn’t last.

In 1992, McDonald’s made a switch, and the fried apple pie became one of the original recipes that changed for the worse. Instead of being deep-fried, the apple pies were moved to a baking method instead. To add further insult to injury for fans, the recipe was changed again in 2018, with reduced sugar and other tweaks to streamline the ingredients and make the dessert healthier. But fear not. For those who have never had the chance to munch on a fried apple pie, there are still some limited options to snag one. Almost every McDonald’s in Hawaii still sells them fried, and so does the McDonald’s location in Downey, California that was built in 1953. So for those in the contiguous United States who aren’t planning a trip to the Aloha State, a visit to California may be in your future. You could also make McDonald’s apple pies taste like the original version by taking a baked one home and frying it in oil yourself.

McDonaldland was a marketing strategy by McDonald’s to appeal to kids back in the 1970s. While Ronald McDonald, the face of McDonald’s, was created in 1963, his merry band of friends didn’t come about until the following decade. That includes characters like the Hamburglar, Grimace, Mayor McCheese, and Captain Crook. The group was featured in television commercials and seemingly well-liked by kids, considering the characters weren’t primarily phased out of marketing until the 2000s.

One way that McDonald’s was able to include the McDonaldland characters into mealtime was through Happy Meals and McDonaldland cookies. Visually and taste-wise, they were reminiscent of any brand of animal crackers, but they were shaped like the characters in McDonaldland. In 2004, the cookies were phased out of Happy Meals to be replaced with healthier options like apple slices, which are still served. But fear not because Australians are still able to snag a bag of the cookies at local McDonald’s restaurants. While they aren’t sold in Happy Meals, patrons can buy them directly off of the dessert menu.

Harry Reese, the founder of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, actually used to work on a dairy farm owned by another famous name in candy: Milton Hershey. In 1928, Reese thought to pair chocolate and peanut butter together for a treat that highlighted both ingredients’ best features. Eventually, Reese sold his creation to Hershey, and today, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are one of the most popular products sold by The Hershey Company.

For Reese’s lovers, prepare to be disappointed because the Reese’s McFlurry simply isn’t an accessible option for those in the United States. In 2023, the Peanut Butter Crunch McFlurry was released to online fanfare. It wasn’t a permanent menu item, though, so it isn’t available anymore. Canada and Korea also had their own McFlurries to choose from with the Reese’s Chipits ‘N Fudge McFlurry and the Reese’s McFlurry, respectively, though neither of those are available anymore either. You can instead make your own version by either buying the candy from the store, or making three-ingredient peanut butter cups that taste like Reese’s and throwing them into an existing McFlurry or vanilla cone.

In honor of “Shrek 5” coming out in 2026, we’re throwing it back to when McDonald’s partnered with DreamWorks for the “Shrek the Third” premiere as well as the “Shrek Forever After” film. When “Shrek the Third” came out in 2007, McDonald’s launched its Ogre-Load McFlurry (aptly named, we’d say), or Swamp Sludge McFlurry, depending on where you lived. It was a mint-flavored McFlurry that leaned into the greenness of Shrek, and it eventually made a return in 2010 for the next movie installment.

The promotion also transcended national borders as South Korean McDonald’s also released its own Shrek-themed treats, though the flavors were different than the one in the United States. Instead of mint, fans in South Korea got to taste an Apple McFlurry, which again leaned into the green of the famous ogre. One can only hope that with the new film coming out, McDonald’s will bring back some of its past Shrek-focused, fan-favorite foods for new generations to try.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the stroopwafel, but we’re here to explain what it is and how it ended up in a McDonald’s McFlurry. Even though they look like tiny waffles (and have waffle in the name), stroopwafels are Dutch cookies. They were thought to have originated in the late 18th or early 19th century in the Netherlands, though there are several stories as to who actually made them first. Stroopwafels soon became popular across the country and are still made fresh every day.

Sometimes McDonald’s introduces international favorites to other countries for a limited time, and in 2019, McDonald’s did just that with the Stroopwafel McFlurry that typically sold in the Netherlands. The chain partnered with Daelmans Stroopwafel, who provided the stroopwafel pieces that were mixed into the vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce of the McFlurry. While McDonald’s no longer sells the product in the United States, Daelman’s has shared how to make your very own at home.

Apple desserts are aplenty, and apple fritters in particular have been made throughout the years, dating back to the 14th century. The United States’ earliest First Lady, Martha Washington, even had a recipe for them in a cookbook she was sent during her first marriage (yes, she was married to someone before George!). From Medieval Englanders to current-day famous music producers like Benny Blanco, people love apple fritters. The deep-fried pastry takes fresh apples and crispy fried batter and turns them into a concoction that satisfies most every sweet tooth, especially when topped with icing or cinnamon sugar.

McDonald’s introduced its version of an apple fritter in 2020 on the McCafé Bakery menu. That was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic when in-store service demand was down and many restaurants were looking for ways to entice consumers to spend more. Unfortunately, only three years later, McDonald’s discontinued the item entirely.

Remember Cinnamelts from the early years of the 21st century? The cinnamon roll from McDonald’s was not necessarily a one-to-one replacement, but it certainly did fill some of the gap left behind. Like the McDonald’s apple fritter, the company’s cinnamon roll was introduced in 2020 as part of the McCafé menu. While there were certainly fans of the offering, the discontinuation of the product a few years later likely came down to cost and pragmatism.

A McDonald’s worker shared on Reddit that quality control and waste were factors in the choice to remove the bakery items from restaurants. Since the cinnamon rolls came frozen and had to be thawed and warmed before serving to customers, it could have been difficult for workers to determine how many to prepare at a given time while ensuring the quality was the same day to day. Another user shared that some locations do still carry them (at least as of 2024), but there’s no consistency in where or why.

The final victim of the McCafé dessert deconstruction is that of the McDonald’s blueberry muffin. Around the time of its introduction to the menu, TODAY was told by a McDonald’s spokesperson that the items got positive feedback when they were first tested at certain stores. Reviews once the products were sold more broadly aligned with that. The treat’s streusel crumble topping and sugar made for a delightful textural experience, while its tulip-style wrapper was an aesthetic plus.

Still, the blueberry muffin stood no chance when it was time for the chopping block. As with the apple fritter and cinnamon roll, the blueberry muffin was fully phased out only a few years after debuting as a partner to morning coffee. But for those who want something sweet with breakfast, fear not. As of March of 2024, McDonald’s has partnered with Krispy Kreme, and its famous donuts will be sold at participating McDonald’s restaurants nationwide by the end of 2026.