Consumed on 18 July 2013
Location - Sandton City Mall, Johannesburg, South Africa
Price - 22ZAR = $2.22USD
Calories - Unknown
Before my wife and I were in South Africa on our Honeymoon in July, I had noticed the "Cuppa Cake" being promoted on McDonald's South Africa Facebook page. I poked my head inside a couple branches when we were in Cape Town prior to arriving in Joburg, but I never saw it being promoted, so I held off on trying to order it until we were ready to try the Texan Burger. The branch within the mall didn't have any promotional signage on the regular menu board, but after I asked for "the ice cream with the cake in the cup" (as I had forgot what the name was) the woman who took my order knew what I was trying to get at. What was more strange was once the Texan Burger was placed on my tray, she said I needed to wait a couple minutes for the ice cream "to be made" and she was going to bring it over to me...strange.
As my wife and I were enjoying the Texan burger the woman did indeed bring the ice cream over to me and placed it on our try. It was a largeish cup with the standard McDonald's soft serve ice cream poking out of the top. I thought again about how this could have taken longer to prepare than the burger we were eating, but I quickly noticed as I picked up the cup to take my first bite, that the paper cup was hot. Not like, not ice cream hot, but properly hot, almost like a cup of coffee. I stuck my spoon in and pushed away the ice cream and a shot of steam came out, the cake hidden below was hot, steaming hot!
This is one of those things that you try, and you know it's simple, but it just worked out perfectly. Sure the ice cream was just your standard McDonald's ice cream, but the cup cake hidden below was not only soft and rich, but since they heated it, it melted the ice cream creating a perfect blend. There was also a hit of fudge in the middle of the cake adding a perfect amount of chocolatey goodness. I kind of regret not trying the Caramel variant of this promo, but I hope it was just as good as this one.
Something so simple could easily be brought over to other countries, so McDonald's, if you do read this blog, please bring this back.
Rating - 5/5