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We have viral TikTok videos to thank (blame?) for popularizing many unlikely food combos. Have a bite of this watermelon with yellow mustard squirted on it, friend. Or this pickle with peanut butter.
One of the latest combos to catch on, due at least in part to a May 20 video with more than 6 million views from TikTok user @arvanfamily, is a twist on an ice cream sandwich made with McDonald’s Hash Browns and an Oreo McFlurry.
The combination may sound bonkers, but it’s not without precedent. Dipping french fries in a Frosty at Wendy’s is a longstanding tradition, and our ancestors probably dipped fries in milkshakes at soda fountains.
“I think it’s that salty-sweet, hot-cold dynamic that works so well,” Shelly Thobe, director of culinary innovation at Wendy’s, told Thrillist in 2017. “It’s taste, it’s texture—it confuses your taste buds…in a good way.”
How much of a boon this trend may be for franchisees might depend on where they’re based, since when McDonald’s serves hash browns varies from country to country.
In Australia, where @arvanfamily, the TikToker who helped start the trend, is based, Macca’s, as the chain is affectionately known Down Under, stopped serving brekkie all day in 2021. It was a blow to nocturnal McMuffin eaters, but they did convert one breakfast item to an all-day offering: hash browns.
In the US, McDonald’s introduced an all-day breakfast menu in 2015, but eighty-sixed it in the early days of the pandemic. Breakfast hours vary among US McDonald’s franchises, but they tend to end at 11am on weekdays and 11:30 on Fridays, the company told Parade.com.
Less clear is what time McDonald’s starts serving McFlurries to enable ordering both components at the same time. One San Francisco user, @foodiesushiqueen, who posted a video wherein she devours a Hash Brown-Oreo McFlurry sandwich, noted that she may have found the golden (arches) hour.
“Thank god they sell McFlurries at 10:30,” she said.
That’s assuming, of course, the McFlurry machine is working.