McDonald's Holiday Pie, AKA the Only Thing That Feels Like Winter Right Now

Embodying any semblance of real holiday spirit in a) these trying times and b) in temperatures that hover between 60 and 80 degrees each day (even in the middle of November) has been a bit of a challenge.

But there's a seasonal, handheld treat that's released for only a couple of months each year, and it certainly doesn't not help. The dessert in question would be McDonald's famous Holiday Pie.

Like all of its other pie renditions, the Holiday Pie exists in perfect handheld form, with pastry that's filled with vanilla custard and topped with sprinkles. If you’re able to nab one in the morning while temperatures hit their daily lows, it kind of feels like catching in a bottle the fall that this year has seemingly failed to bring us here in Texas.

It — particularly when paired with a cup of black coffee (looking at you, Folgers Black Silk) — is a treat and a luxury. At $1.19, it’s a cheap one at that.

The pastry itself, as Substack writer Chocolate Mike puts it, lies somewhere “between flaky and crumbly,” and we’d have to agree. While "crumbly" might not seem like an honorary descriptor, in this case, we mean it affectionately. He writes that the handheld pies have a “cult-like following,” and it is a cult of which we are members.
We love a good baking show to wind down from (and cope with) the world that’s seemingly on fire around us at all times, and any fellow baking-show enthusiast will likely agree it’s a tragedy when a judge tells a contestant that their custard turned out like scrambled eggs.

We once bit into a Napoleon (the pastry, not the dictator) that had a custard just like that, and we’ve got to agree it’s not the most enjoyable thing. But as the chain appears to have done with everything else, we can only assume McDonald’s has industrialized its Holiday Pie custard-making process in a way that ensures a perfect custard-y result every time.

It would have been lovely if before the unfortunate downfall of Bon Appétit's show Gourmet Makes in 2020 — after fans of the beloved YouTube show were made aware of pay disparities and other dubious practices, thus disbanding its original group of charming and endearing on-camera talent — there had been an episode in which Claire Saffitz tried her hand at making gourmet McDonald’s Holiday Pies, but alas. Or how about Paul Hollywood bringing it to the tent in England?

Thankfully, the Substack writer we mentioned earlier — Chocolate Mike — came through with a very detailed, reverse-engineered recipe for the pie that we can’t wait to try.