Food Theory: Testing the McDonalds McFlurry Cake! (Viral TikTok Hack)

It's filming day for Food Theory We're going out, we're going to get ice cream and Matthew is wearing the only sunglasses he could find I don't have a pair of sunglasses right now This is like an ad from 1983, that? I'm wearing this white jacket right now, they're like crazy sunglasses, they're actually my eye surgery sunglasses, I'll never give up on you, hello Internet, welcome to the

food

theory

show, believe it or not, it's Even better after putting it in the microwave. I've been on the

food

theory

channel since the beginning. You know I'm a man who values ​​efficiency in my

cake

s and there's nothing easier than boxed

cake

mixes.

I'm wrong? I spent an entire episode showing you how the seemingly simple instructions on the back of boxed cakes are, in fact, unnecessarily complex and redundant. You don't need those eggs. People who could be saving five heck, even ten seconds, every time you make a boxed pie. Just think about the things you could be doing. With all that free time, like ringing the notification bell, maybe the point is that I've been striving to reach the top of the pie efficiency for the better part of a year, but if a recent tick-tock trend is to be believed , there is still a hill I have yet to climb, pour your

mcflurry

into a bowl and add some self raising flour and put it in the microwave for about two minutes and this is the result, it is a

mcflurry

cake and it tastes so good, it is okay, tick tock, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention here, I'm doing episodes on how to reduce four cake ingredients to three, meanwhile, you all are out there making two ingredient cakes using fast food and in the microwave, the lazy part of my brain is so turned on right now.

To be clear, two-ingredient ice cream cup cakes were around long before Emma Cannon's ticking, but she definitely deserves credit for putting it on our collective radar in 2021, I mean a Mcflurry cake, come on, that's just fun and sounds delicious which is exactly why steph and I grabbed a mcflurry, some self raising flour and tried it ourselves, what a fun festive cuppa and plus it doesn't mix at all, apparently there's a miscommunication , see this scoop has such an awkward design because it's meant to be plugged into the machine and then, pull it out so the topping is distributed throughout the burst, like what you've served me here is a cup of ice cream plus the topping , after a little trial and error, we arrived at two parts ice cream to one part flour and one minute. 45 seconds in the microwave is fine, I mean, it doesn't have much flavor, that's what I was going to say: this cake or this bread.

Did we make sweet bread? It's very slightly sweet, it's not that sweet. like the ice cream or cookies in it would have you believe, I mean, it has the consistency, look at it with a guilty face there, so like I was saying before, I was rudely interrupted like it's a little firmer than a typical cake, it's like a micro, you may feel the effects of the microwave a little bit, but honestly, if you cook this in the oven, you might have a really legit cake, right, not bad, yeah, not bad for a cake that was literally made with two ingredients in two minutes. of baking time, so while I definitely think the ticking overstates the deliciousness of the mcflurry cake, I can't help but wonder if there's something here - after all, this cake baked ridiculously quickly and it's not like the mcflurry was the unique quick frozen.

A food dessert that exists could be a different dessert to make a better tasting cake or there is something special about mcflurry that allows it to react with self-rising flour in a way that other desserts do not and this, according to theorists, is what we will do. We will be

testing

today the food theory has taken the mcflurry cake trend and taken it to the next level. If there's another fast food dessert that works better as a two-ingredient microwave-safe mug cake, we'll find it today, so buckle up theorists, it's a fun meal today. Theory is going to find out which fast-food-derived cake takes the cake for being a no-brainer, so to determine which fast-food desserts will cake and what won't, let's first look at self-rising flour that isn't.

Just like the more common all-purpose flour, self-raising flour is a bit of a cheat ingredient because it's actually a mix of three ingredients you probably already have in your pantry, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. was invented in England back in the 19th century, when sailors used self-rising flour or self-rising flour, as the British tend to call it, as a simple way to make baked goods during long sea voyages, kind of like I started to use superior ramen. as an easy way to prepare food during my long college trip, so if you want to try today's experiment but don't have self-rising flour at home, don't worry, you can easily make some by mixing a cup. of all purpose flour, a teaspoon and a half of baking powder and a quarter teaspoon of salt, that salt is a take or leave ingredient, by the way, the British tend not to include it, but what I want to know is how does it work.

Does ice cream plus self-rising flour exactly equal one cake? For one thing, many ice cream ingredients are redundant with traditional cake recipes—for example, here's a recipe for a basic vanilla cake along with a brown butter ice cream recipe. how similar the ingredients are sugar check the milk and cream check the butter vanilla eggs in the end there are exactly three ingredients in the cake that are not in the ice cream our old friends all-purpose flour baking powder and salt, so it's easy to see why two ingredient ice cream cakes are a thing, the two cheap ingredients involved are basically matching halves of a magic charm that when combined form a really typical cake recipe, of course not all fast food desserts will have all the ingredients present that mcflurry does not have.

They contain eggs, for example, and many quick breads manage to rise without sugar, so which ingredient is really necessary here? Clearly, something in the ice cream is reacting with the self-rising flour and causing the cake to rise if we know what that magic ingredient is. is that we won't have to waste time or money trying fast food desserts that don't contain it, so what's the magic ingredient for the answers? Let's take a closer look at self-rising flour and what makes it work. The role of baking powder in all of this is to act as a leavening agent that gives the cake its rise (see baking powder), which I assume is a cheap ingredient in itself, is a mixture of baking soda, aka such as baking soda which is a base, acid salts which of course are acidic and a buffer material to prevent bases and acids from reacting prematurely when water is introduced into the equation it triggers the entire acid-base reaction which produces carbon dioxide, you know how breads and cakes have a lot of air pockets that make them so spongy and also very good for insulating also check out our bread mitt episode for more information on this yes, I did an episode where i used bread on my hands in public no i won't apologize anyway those air pockets are formed from carbon dioxide bubbles released during the reaction how do they get trapped inside the cake?

Well, the flowers get rolled in all this flour when mixed with water and exposed to heat. Hardens. This is what gives structure to baked goods and this structure is what traps air bubbles in terms of salt, as well as adding flavor. It helps absorb moisture which in turn reacts with the baking powder, so there you have it. The only additional thing self-rising flour requires other than heat is water, which means there are plenty of fast food desserts capable of making at least one cake. in theory, in food, well I'm going to stop you guys, get the point, long story short, if a dessert is frozen, that means it has water in it.

If it has water, that means it will react with the self-rising flour and that means Steph and I have. There are many fast food restaurants to visit today. My body is not ready. I did an online exercise class this morning. Does that count? Yeah, hey, Chloe Ting's 10 minute ab workout, this will kill it, so I started driving us around town looking like Rick Astley. after eye surgery and we got frozen desserts from every fast food restaurant we passed, plus the oreo mcflurry from mcdonald's, we got a classic chocolate ice cream from Wendy's with a vanilla ice cream, a queen of dairy, we got a orange julius and a raspberry fudge.

Blizzard, by the way, can I just say how much I love that Dairy Queen shoots all of their Blizzard products backwards? That's commitment and I respect it. Now, when Steph and I arrived at the Sonic Drive-In, we were a little hungry. Also let it be known that we came here for one article, we are leaving with four and I regret not having gotten a fish. Maybe I'll get a fifth before I leave this parking lot. Sonic. I haven't been to Sonic in years. He's fine, parked. far away at sonic we order a big oreo cookie dough and a soft vanilla cone and maybe a couple more things we put the lime in the coke zero you drink it all oh that's good the only thing that would make it better if it was was harris teeter diet cola no calories we have to go ready yes these are my sunglasses that we haven't been buying in a long time you guys got them at a hospital we also ordered a little more than planned at Burger King so from the idea behind this episode is for one to see if mcflurry mug cake can really work and then two to decide if there is anything better than mcflurry mug cake.

Let's visit all the different fast food restaurants to buy their signature desserts and see, what can we do? making a cake at and at Burger King growing up, my favorite fast food dessert was Hershey's ice cream cake, so we took an ice cream cake and we're trying to transform it into a cake without ice cream, yeah, there it is. Meanwhile, while we were there, I also saw that they had frozen cokes. You know, really, we're just going to get a frozen coke. Let's see how it goes. I'm still a fan of coke. That madness while we were in.

Burger King whoppers are so good, I know we give Burger King a hard time on this channel, we do so many Burger King eliminations, but the whopper is so good, it's great, I like it so much that I don't like their strategy Twitch advertising. But I like their grilling strategy, so one last stop is at a local fast food chain called Cookout and they're known for their shakes. They probably have 40 different things you can mix into smoothies. Smoothies are their thing, so my hope is. that my favorite order of an oreo milkshake with chocolate banana pudding will actually produce today's best mug cake sounds promising at the time after I've used up every cupholder in the car, even the two in Ollie's seat, We came back home.

I was curious. to find out if skip had forgiven me for the whipping I gave him earlier come on, come on, give him some little keys, give him some little keys, oh luckily the captain put the whole ordeal behind him. An overwhelming smell of desserts had Ollie at his best. behavior too, oh, what is that tasty thing called? I think it might be a soft serve, oh, that was very well ordered, yes, of course, beans, absolutely, oh, good bites, how is that good? Hey, ollie, do you want to try some? our cake we tried too we made some cake tell me what you think yeah it's not every day a two year old turns down a cake so I hope some of the other contenders turn out better than Mcflurry anyway steph and I proceeded to add self-rising flour to each fast food dessert, then we popped the dough in the microwave, where I kept a close eye on everything you're just walking backwards that doesn't look like a moonwalk, okay, I could have.

I probably paid more attention to the mug cakes, but if I had this part of the video it would have been a lot more boring anyway, we tried each individual mug cake when it came out of the microwave. First up was the sonic explosion of oreo, which turned out almost exactly like the mcflurry cake did oh oh that's good it's still not too sweet it's a thing eh eh it still tastes like some kind of plain cake like it didn't have much flavor again vanilla a lot of chocolate flavor but it's nice it's very Good, then we move on to the chocolate ice cream.

I am very concerned about this monstrosity. I don't know, it seems like something out of a horror movie. Hey, if you've stumbled upon a phobia or that fear of holes, this is not the cake. For you it's not your cake oh, it's strange it's that the malt expanded in a strange way why is it orange oh this is orange oh this is strange and it smells bad you know that consistency that cranberry sauce has when it comes outstraight from a can that's what it is oh I love your ice creams but maybe we don't turn them into cake okay I mean here's the thing isn't it great to see texture wise on par with the sonic flavor, I mean, again, it's just plain cake, the vanilla ice cream tasted similar and had the exact same gummy cake texture, the Sonic soft serve cone, however, had a great cake texture, As for the taste, I can tell you that it tastes like a pancake, which is good, yes I am.

I mean, here's the thing, pancakes aren't very tasty, but they have a pretty good hairstyle, okay, I like pancakes, this is moist, it's like flakes, flaky, crumbly, like a real cake, it's soft, oh , simple vanilla cake is actually like vanilla ice cream, it's so far the best. is the winner so far, by far, hands down, oh yeah, we have a good one, I don't know what it says about two ingredient fast food mug cakes when the one that tastes like a pancake is the big winner so far, but that's where the bar is. I'm afraid the next one was the Dairy Queen Blizzard.

Stephanie had high expectations for this one because her dough had a very strong raspberry flavor when it came out of the microwave, although the raspberry flavor was nowhere to be found and the other dairy queen contender, the cream-flavored orange julius , didn't fare any better, so this is the julius orange floppy, there we go, it looks a lot like those ice cream cakes. although yeah it's super gelatinous, it's like dough, it smells like orange and then it doesn't taste like orange at all, yeah it just tastes like mostly cooked flour, at this point I was starting to worry that we weren't going to find some real winner in the group, I mean, I'm sure some of these cakes were edible, but not what we set out to make.

I was hoping at least one of the frozen treats would taste better in cake form, but so far nothing came even close to the second episode on a theory channel in as many weeks to disprove a tick tock theory, she was promoting it on that tick tock. , she says this is the most delicious thing ever and my friends who have tried this say it's amazing and not next, now I'll do it. I admit there was a lot of pressure on the cookout shake to work, not only was I rooting for it as the town favorite, but the cookouts were the only shake in the race, meaning I was competing in name of smoothies everywhere, oh, there's that cute piece of banana. right there, just sitting there, just sitting there, like it does in the shake oh, it's okay here, you know what this one is okay, it has the most flavor, are you a little biased?

Let me check, it could be here, let me, let me tell you, oh, okay, it's very interesting, in fact, the banana helps a lot, not only does it help you eat it, but it seems to have permeated throughout the cake, so you get a little bit of banana flavor and then you get kind of like a twice baked cookie. I frost it like it's there, it actually has a pretty good texture, it's not super duper, but it's moist, like if you mixed it with some seasonings or maybe put a little bit, I don't know, like syrup or frosting, I think you could .

You could reasonably call this a dessert, in the end my Banana Chocolate Pudding Oreo Shake had the most flavor of all the contenders thanks to all the chunky ingredients, but we couldn't get a good cake-like consistency Crumbly from the batter even with some extra time in the microwave at this point I was getting desperate and we were getting into the weird starters. Burger King's Hershey's Sunday Cake was a spontaneous last-minute addition to today's experiment for no real reason other than the fact that I thought I'd turn a cake into The cake was a lot of fun while waiting in the fast food takeout line. and, surprisingly, Sunday's pie held up.

It doesn't seem to have triggered like some of the others have. In fact, it looks very good. Oh yeah it has a crumb texture again consistency oh okay we may not have mixed the flower and it started out drier so it ended up being a little drier but honestly I don't hate it it actually tastes to chocolate for the first time in any of these and we have had many of these with chocolate last and definitely least we have the frozen coke from the friends at Burger King. I'm not even going to pretend this one had a chance, it was doomed from the start, I think so.

I'll be very lucky to end up with something that solidifies in this one. I can't even get the flour to dissolve. It's literally like it's chopped up. Are you sure these aren't marshmallows? It looks like Swiss Miss's hot chocolate. It looks like this. it's definitely not throwing it in the microwave Stephanie throwing it throwing it in there disgusting we're just going to drink hot burnt coke not even you're drinking that no it's so funny but I'll drink that's a face oh no we're not eating that no, no, we're not going to eat that, oh, it has a kind of how's the bouquet?

I wish I could describe it to you I wish I could describe it to you here try the tv oh no it smells like hot coke I mean here's what he formulated something that shook when it fell there man you know what you know it's jelly cause jam don't shake oh god mine, so cool, uh, so good, it's great out of all of these, this one is probably the best for your waistline because you're not going to swallow it terribly terrible so what can we conclude from all this self-rising flour it's a really easy product to Use able to create cakes from almost any delicious meltable delicacy you like?

Throw it away, but are you able to create a good cake when the only other ingredient is fast food? Not so much. I think Ollie's reaction says it all, although when he came into the kitchen he said, "I want ice cream," and we gave him ice cream and I'm like, here's this cake made of ice cream and he took it out of his mouth and gave it back to me, Everyone says it right there friends, if you want a cake, make a cake, if you want ice cream, eat ice cream. This actually saves you a lot of work.

You actually still have to go out and get the ice cream properly. You're still getting the ice cream. You still have to have the enriched flour that rises on its own. And what are you going to get with a good cake? as if, at best, you were getting a good cake. This is one of those moments when you think that a trick you saw online didn't actually produce the magical results that people tell you, who was the winner today, all the fast food companies that got us. Spending an excruciating amount of money on their various desserts, who is the loser today?

Steph and I because we consumed a lot of calories and none of it was worth it thanks for watching the theorists, I just popped coke saturated with hot flowers in my mouth if that's not it. It deserves a click on the subscribe button. I don't know what it is despite what you've seen today. Steph and I have been having a lot of fun with these taste test videos lately. Be sure to check out our diet cola tournament episode. I put my love for Diet Coke to the test, a blind taste test to be precise and spoiler alert.

Diet Coke did not win the tournament. That's right, it turns out there's another diet soda whose taste I like even more. Something tells me. It would be pretty mediocre in a two-ingredient mug cake, but hey, that's just a theory, a food theory, bon appetit.