The Genius Thing People Are Doing With McDonald's Ice Cream Cones
Recently, a video posted to TikTok has been making headlines — it features a McDonald's ice cream hack that seems perfectly designed for summer (or any season!). TikTok user @sandraciresart uploaded a video of this cooling treat, which is created by dunking a McDonald's vanilla ice cream cone into a large cup of Coca-Cola to make a coke float. The simple yet genius hack has received over 640,000 views and 3,000 comments at time of writing.
In the video, you can see the user take a cup and fill it about halfway with Coca-Cola from the soda machine, before dunking and swirling a vanilla ice cream cone into the drink to create a frothy treat that is half soda, half ice cream. No word on what she did with the cone, but we're willing to bet some of the ice cream stuck around inside, and would suggest eating it solo and breaking off some pieces for a crunchy topping to add to your float.
You can make these McDonald's ice cream floats with other drinks as well
Taste of Home states that this combo is actually really well known in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Colombia, where it is called a vaca negra, or black cow. This ice cream cone hack seems particularly useful at fast food restaurants, where dessert menus can be pretty limited. The addition of Coke to your after-dinner meal creates a super refreshing treat, while still feeling like dessert.
Delish reminds you to either fill the soda yourself or drink at least half before adding your ice cream, as user @saidaxnor shows what can happen if you try this hack with a full soda in a hilarious ice cream float fail video. In the comments, other users suggest skipping the ice, which will make it easier to mix your float together.
Delish says that this McDonald's ice cream float hack works well with other sodas too. They state that TikTok users have been sharing videos of floats made with everything from Sprite, to root beer, to sweet tea. Maybe we'll try this float with coffee, creating our own fast food version of the Italian dessert affogato. How early is too early for ice cream? Asking for a friend...
Try this McDonald's ice cream hack if you're not into drinking your dessert
Did you know you can also create your own ice cream sandwich using McDonald's soft serve? Dubbed the McIce Cream Sandwich by Foodbeast, this dessert creation combines McDonald's chocolate chip cookies and vanilla soft serve to create a fast food version of the Chipwich. This McDonald's dessert menu hack is probably one of the easiest ones out there to execute, as you simply need to sandwich soft serve ice cream between two cookies. We would recommend getting your ice cream in a cup instead of a cone for this hack, and using the spoon to help spread it between the two cookies. Be sure to allow your cookies time to cool before sandwiching the ice cream, as this hack will be messy enough without speeding up the window of time you have before your treat begins to melt.
Bustle suggests a genius way to take this ice cream cookie sandwich hack to the next level if you're looking for a fun spin on the classic vanilla ice cream and chocolate chip cookie pairing. In 2017, the outlet reported on a viral Tweet about a hack people were seriously excited to try. Twitter user @nxthvniel_ uploaded a series of photos to the platform of an ice cream sandwich with Oreo McFlurry between the two cookies. Yum!
McDonald's almost had a ice cream float on the U.S. menu
If you're kind of shocked McDonald's didn't think of adding an ice cream float to their menu years ago, well, they kind of did. In 2016, The Daily Meal reported that the fast food chain tested a Dr. Pepper-based ice cream float at select locations in New York and Seattle. The menu item, named the McFloat, had already been widely available internationally, and is still to this day a hugely popular menu item in many countries. Business Insider states that the McFloat is particularly popular in India, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and is available in a wide variety of flavors around the world like Coke, Green Apple Sprite, and Iced Coffee.
Why didn't the McFloat ever get a wider release? Well, we're really not sure. It seems to have quietly disappeared after its short test in only a few areas. If we had to guess, we'd say it was probably just not popular enough for the chain to release nationwide. In a statement to Thrillist on test markets in Ohio, a spokesperson for McDonald's stated that they frequently try new menu items in select locations to "gather feedback from customers to inform future business decisions." If a menu item does not perform the way McDonald's wants it to, it is unlikely it will make the cut.