We Went to 12 Drive-Thrus to Find the Best Fast-Food Dessert

If you’re looking for the best fast-food dessert, search no more! We tested 12 menu options from various fast-food spots to find the very best sweet treats.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

12. Burger King

We ordered the Burger King Hershey Sundae Pie for this taste test. It arrived in a handy, triangle shaped box that was easy to transport home from the drive-thru. This pie is made with a chocolate crust, a creamy chocolate filling with Hershey’s chocolate chips and topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

This dessert definitely wins top honors in visual appeal. It looks like a rich and decadent way to end your meal. If you are looking for the nostalgic childhood appeal of Hershey’s, this pie will deliver.

Bottom line: Surprisingly, the pie wasn’t heavy or dense, and instead was more light and fluffy than we would have expected. However, the flavor didn’t win us over. The whipped cream portion was thick and sugary and tasted like stabilizers were added.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

11. White Castle

Besides the iconic sliders at White Castle, their dessert menu also offers smaller-sized sweet treats. All of their desserts are sold on a stick for optimal portability. We sampled the Fudge Dipped Brownie On-A-Stick, but they also offer a Strawberry Cheesecake On-A-Stick and even a Gooey Buttercake On-A-Stick. At $1.39, the price is right for this convenient dessert. While this budget-friendly dessert was easy to eat, the flavor wasn’t at the top of our list. It felt like a pre-packaged afterthought rather than a well-crafted menu item.

Bottom line: We loved the originality of the concept, but just wanted it to feel a little more homemade.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

10. Taco Bell

The Cinnamon Twists from Taco Bell are the light-as-air dessert required after a heavy meal of tacos or cheesy gordita crunches. They are delightfully crunchy with a hint of cinnamon and sugar. At $1.00 per bag, this is a value add-on to your drive-thru order. The twists are easy to eat with one hand, and you will definitely enjoy licking your fingers clean of the sweet coating.

Bottom line: While we did enjoy the airy crunch from these twists, they lacked enough oomph from the cinnamon to be a truly satisfying dessert.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

9. Subway

Subway offers a broad selection of cookies to accompany your sandwich order. They are pleasantly displayed in a case, the way you might see in your favorite bakery. We opted for the white chocolate macadamia nut cookie for this taste test. The cookie was soft and tender, and at less than a dollar per cookie, the price was right. However, we felt this particular cookie was overly sweet and needed a few more chunks of white chocolate and nuts to make it feel more substantial.

Bottom line: We are definitely willing to give some of the other cookie choices a try in the future, but for this taste test, the Subway cookie didn’t rank as high as other fast-food dessert options.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

8. Arby’s

At Arby’s, we ordered the apple turnover. This dessert is a puff pastry triangle, filled with apple pie filling and finished with a drizzle of sweet glaze. The puff pastry was nice and flaky, but we found ourselves hoping for a bit more filling on the inside. The chunks of apple were tasty, so it would have been nice to have even more in there to savor.

Bottom line: If there was more to the filling, and perhaps if the dessert was warmed up before serving, this pastry would have ranked higher on our taste test list.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

7. McDonald’s

The baked apple pie from McDonald’s is a fast-food dessert guaranteed to evoke nostalgic memories of childhood. At only $1.59, the Baked Apple Pie is a good price for a dessert. The lattice top pie crust was topped with a light sprinkling of sugar and the apple filling is touched with a hint of cinnamon. These are intended to be served warm, but ours arrived a bit cooler than we would have liked.

Bottom line: While this dessert brings all the retro vibes, it falls short nowadays when other fast-food restaurants have started to up their dessert game.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of Home

6. Wendy’s

We all know and love the Wendy’s Frosty, but there are also some decadent dessert items available as well. On this trip, we opted for the chocolate chunk cookie for $1.39. The crisp edges and soft, warm center evoked feelings of a fresh-baked cookie rather than something pre-packaged in a factory.

Bottom line: We appreciated the hearty amount of chocolate chunks in this cookie—it’s a solid choice when it comes to dessert.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

5. Jimmy John’s

Jimmy John’s offers a Triple Chip Cookie on their dessert menu that really surprised us. The cookie is made with high-quality Ghirardelli chocolate, and our taste buds noticed. The cookie was overflowing with milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate and white chips.

Bottom line: This delightful cookie was soft, chewy and satisfying. The only downside was that this is a pre-packaged cookie rather than something made fresh in-house.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

4. Jersey Mike’s

Jersey Mike’s is another sandwich shop with a few desserts to choose from. Here, we opted to try their chocolate brownie, and it delivered. The brownie was moist and tender with a gratifying amount of chocolate chips. Our only complaint was that this was a pre-packaged treat, rather than something with a more homemade feeling.

Bottom line: Overall, this brownie offered a rich chocolate taste that would be a great way to end a meal.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

3. Popeye’s

The Apple Cinnamon Pie from Popeye’s reigned supreme over McDonald’s and Arby’s when it came to hand pies. This arrived warm, with a fantastic crunch and an epic cinnamon coating. The apple pieces in the filling were hearty and the filling-to-crust ratio was in perfect balance. Every bite was perfectly crisp and never felt soggy or greasy. Note that this is a particularly messy dessert. We recommend enjoying while sitting down at home, rather than in the car.

Bottom line: We loved how they didn’t hold back with the cinnamon here, and really allowed that flavor to shine front and center.

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Kristina Vänni for Taste of home

2. Taco John’s

The churro from Taco John’s was definitely a dark horse surprise in this taste test. The freshly-made crave-able treats are deep-fried in-house, dusted in cinnamon sugar and served hot. The result is perfectly crisp and crunchy, with the ideal balance of cinnamon and sugar. This was certainly a shock since the Taco John’s tacos and burritos didn’t rank as high on previous taste tests.

Bottom line: At $2.29, this dessert was a little more expensive than other fast-food options, but the taste experience made it well worth the price.