The Discontinued McDonald's Dessert From The '80s That Deserves A Comeback
The 1980s were a great time for McDonald's. This was the decade that gave us the now-iconic Chicken McNuggets and McRib, not to mention the joy of McDonald's birthday parties and excellent Happy Meal toys. And when it came to sweet treats, Mickey D's was at the top of its game with deep-fried apple pies (a treat the chain mostly stopped making), and a lesser-remembered pastry the fast food giant called the Caramel Pecan Roll.
This handheld bakery classic was only available from 1982 to 1984, which is why you probably haven't heard much about it. The flaky pastry was spiced with cinnamon, dripping with caramel, and topped with pecans. Paired with a hot cup of McDonald's coffee, it would have been an amazing treat for breakfast, a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, or dessert, and if available today, it undoubtedly still would be. You don't tend to find dangerously delicious breakfast pastries at this level of bakery quality from fast food restaurants, and this is just one reason the Caramel Pecan Roll is worth remembering and hoping it might come back one day.
The caramel pecan roll was developed by a highly respected chef
One typically doesn't equate McDonald's menu items with haute cuisine, so imagine our surprise when we found out that the short-lived Caramel Pecan Roll was created by a classically trained European chef. René Arend was born in Luxembourg in 1928 and graduated from culinary school in Strasbourg, France, in 1952. While working at Chicago's prestigious Whitehall Club, he met and served Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's. In 1976, Kroc successfully recruited Arend as the company's executive chef.
Among Arend's contributions to the global chain are Chicken McNuggets, the McRib sandwich, Sausage McMuffin breakfast sandwiches, and those Caramel Pecan Rolls. Arend would travel around the country to various McDonald's restaurants, stopping in to taste the dishes he developed for both quality control and to gauge how customers were responding to them. We don't know why these pastries were as short-lived as they were, but we know it's certainly not the only breakfast treat that McDonald's has bid farewell to; in 2023, the company cut blueberry muffins, cinnamon rolls, and apple fritters from its menus.