- I feel like after all of this work,
you're still gonna like the McDonald's one better.
That's my prediction.
(sighs)
(upbeat music)
- So, we both really love fast food.
One of the things I love about fast food though
is how easy it is to get it,
go drive through and pick it up.
Sometimes you just need something quick and tasty.
- And we were talking the other day,
and we were thinking like,
I wonder if we could make some of this stuff.
- It seems pretty simple.
Fast food is like a couple ingredients.
But is the magic in the processed-ness of it?
That's what I really want to know.
One of my favorite things, of course,
is the Egg McMuffin from McDonald's.
(heavenly music)
- So today, we're gonna see if we can recreate it
from scratch and see how well we can do.
- Technically, you don't really need to make this
'cause you could go get it.
- So I was looking into this, and I think,
what we would need to do is we need to make some
homemade English muffins. - Oh my God, we're baking.
- We're baking.
And then obviously, egg, American cheese,
and Canadian bacon.
There's a lot of steps when you make it yourself.
- And we're gonna be making some
real homemade English muffins.
That may be the hardest part.
- Oh, it's definitely gonna be the hardest part.
This is gonna be tough.
- We are gonna actually compare our McDonald's Egg McMuffin
to our homemade McMuffin,
and we're gonna see how ours measures up.
That's like a baking pun.
- Oh my God. (laughing)
(mysterious music)
I would say I'm like a medium skill-level baker,
but I do love baking a lot.
I've never made English muffins.
- I would say I'm very novice, but now that I'm older,
I need to feed myself.
This recipe I actually got from King Arthur Flour,
like the flour company,
and this one seemed like the simplest.
Literally, all we have to do is put everything here
into this, and then we put it on a standing mixer
and let it go for a bit.
That's four and a half cups of flour.
- Okay, these are just for the biscuits.
We're starting out with biscuits.
- Muffins.
- Why do I keep calling them biscuits?
- I don't know.
- [Caitlin] This is sugar, salt, yeast.
- Okay, yay, oh, this way.
- Yeast.
Softened butter.
(laughs)
All right, so the egg, we have to beat a little bit,
so I'm gonna...
- Baking is all about the science.
- Baking is a lot of chemistry.
You have to really hope you got it right.
- That's why you're good at it, I think.
- 'Cause I'm good at chemistry?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
I was good at chemistry in high school.
- I don't think I ever really figured out
how to balance an equation.
- We have one and three quarters cups of lukewarm milk.
Ready?
The trick with this is supposedly that
you're not supposed to over mix it.
So we have to be a little careful.
- I wouldn't know when something is fully mixed.
I guess when it just looks like
the ingredients are together, right?
- So the recipe says that we're supposed to
beat it until it is texture of satin, but stretchy.
Medium-high for five minutes. - Okay.
- I think it's...
(mixer mixing)
- Wow.
(elevator music)
- I don't know if that's satin but it's smooth
and it's definitely stretchy.
- [Ella] It's now dough.
- So now basically we have to let this rise
for like an hour or two
and then we're just gonna kinda ball it up.
Cover it with a towel, and then we pray
that it rises. - So we hope it rises.
- It won't like probably double the size
but it'll get all puffy.
- This is a lot of time for an Egg McMuffin.
(elevator music)
- All done. - I'm excited.
- Alright, it rose.
- It definitely rose.
- Now we deflate it gently.
The way that I've always done that
is just kind of punch it.
- Do we do it in this bowel or do we take--
- Yeah, so you wanna do it?
You just kinda do it like three times.
(intense music)
- Oh it feels so good.
- Oh my God, look at that. - Wow.
- It made a lot, okay.
- Beautiful. - It's supposed to make
16, I don't know if that's gonna happen.
I'm just gonna divide it in half and then--
- [Ella] Okay, and we make little balls?
- Yeah.
(elevator music)
So we can put them in this
you can kind of put it in
then kinda like squish it down again.
So it's interesting, I didn't realize before making these
that you actually fry English muffins,
you don't actually put them in the oven.
- Whoa, that is cool. - That's why it's like
brown on both sides.
- Baking is fun.
- Do you bake, ever? - No.
Never.
I buy store-bought dough.
I wouldn't count that though.
- I don't think that's the same thing.
And then we're supposed to cover them
and let them rise for a little bit.
Ready? - Mm hmm.
(elevator music)
- [Caitlin] Ta da!
- They're little pillows.
- Yeah they are like little pillows actually.
- They're great.
- So, you actually kinda fry them.
You need to do like--
- Non-stick cooking spray.
We're using coconut oil.
- But I think you can use
whatever you want. - You can use whatever.
- And then you put on a bunch of semolina.
It's like a special kind.
'Cause you know like the bottom of the English muffins
you buy, how they have all these little stuff?
- Yeah, oh my gosh.
- Ta da.
And then you put some on the top.
You can take them out of the little molds.
They cook like that for seven to 15 minutes on each side.
- This is a long time.
We've been going for about an hour you guys.
- But we're close.
- I'm factoring that in to my final decision.
- I mean, that's fair.
(elevator music)
Alright, you ready to flip? - Yeah, I'm ready.
These look so good and puffy.
Oh wow.
- [Caitlin] Beautifully brown.
- Wow, that's almost perfect.
So we wait another seven minutes.
- Now we wait again. - Okay.
- Great.
- We'll check back in with these guys soon.
(elevator music)
They're looking beautiful.
- I think yeah, they're done.
Let's take them off.
I think the hardest part's over.
So now it's just eggs, bacon, and cheese.
- Great. - I found this recipe on ABC
and a McDonald's had released their recipe
for the Egg McMuffin, supposedly.
Gotta grease the pan.
- I'm just waiting for this to get hot.
Not how you should check.
- Safety was not a priority to you.
Premium Canadian bacon.
- That does look like the McDonald's meat.
- So you do it like a minute-ish on each side, supposedly.
(Canadian bacon sizzling) - Ooh!
There's nothing better than a sizzle.
Love a sizzle.
I'm gonna just go for it. - Yeah go for it.
You can actually use this to--
- [Ella] The egg, what?
Did you see that somewhere?
- That's how one of the chefs at McDonald's does it.
- [Ella] Wow, that is a hack.
- Alright, then you put a little water in around the edge.
And then you let it go for like, two, three minutes.
Alright I'm gonna let those cool.
Apparently what you're supposed to do
is you're not supposed to cut English muffins.
You're supposed to fork it around the side
and then pull it apart so it's all cragly.
We can kinda just like, around the sides.
- [Ella] Oh my gosh.
- [Caitlin] That's beautiful.
- Oh my God, these are gonna be so good.
I can't wait.
- That's probably done.
Yep, woo!
- So the cheese we have, what is this, American?
- This is just, yeah, good old American.
- Alright, moment of truth.
Carefully get an egg.
- Cheese goes first. - Cheese goes first.
- So cheese.
- Oh it's so beautiful. - Wow!
- Are we chefs?
- And then Canadian bacon. - Oh my gosh.
- Ta da!
- Wow! Oh my gosh this looks so good.
(upbeat music)
So these are the McDonald's ones.
These are the homemade Egg McMuffins.
- I'm very proud of myself.
I will say that. - They look great.
- They look awesome. - They look really good.
- [Caitlin] They look very similar to the real one.
- They look like the commercial version
'cause they're a little thicker.
These are a little more toasty, you can see--
- Maybe we should've toasted ours.
Also I realized that I forgot to put butter on ours.
You could also use margarine which is what I have currently.
- Oh my God.
It's time to taste--
- How well we did.
- So how are we going to grade ours?
- I feel like we have to put the time and effort
as a category.
General taste.
Maybe we could talk about cost.
- These obviously cost more.
- Part of the cost too is our time.
- Several hours we had to wait for the dough to rise
multiples times.
I say we dive in.
- Should we eat the real thing first?
- Let's try the real thing.
I need to set the bar.
- I really hope that these taste the same.
- I hope they really hold their own.
- I know, McDonald's version. - McDonald's.
Mm hmm, it's great. - Classic.
I love McDonald's.
- I do too.
- I love it so much, it's so bad.
It's such a bad addiction.
- You have that melted cheese in there.
You have that egg, the ham.
The muffins taste great, too.
- It's a nice and bouncy muffin.
- Mm hmm.
I do taste a little bit of the crunch
in the toast of the muffin.
We didn't toast ours nearly enough.
- Looking at this I feel like they cooked their
Canadian bacon a lot less than we cooked ours.
- [Ella] Yeah, our Canadian bacon is super toasty.
The egg looks really similar.
- [Caitlin] The cheese is yellow.
- Alright, now let's go for our homemade one.
I'm so excited, I hope it tastes just as good.
- I feel like this is gonna drip everywhere.
Oh no!
- Mmm. - Oh man.
- Holy (beep).
(laughing) It's so good.
- This is so much better. - It's so good, you guys.
Holy (beep).
- This is so good.
- This is really good, like the homemade muffin,
you can taste that it's homemade.
- [Caitlin] It tastes very similar.
- It tastes very, very similar.
I would say the only difference is really the muffin.
'Cause the muffin tastes really fresh.
- [Caitlin] The muffin has a very different texture.
- I'm gonna go back and--
- I feel like the muffin of the homemade one
is less springy.
I don't know if that's good or bad
but it just tastes different.
But everything else tastes remarkably similar.
- I think we nailed it.
This is definitely on par with the McDonald's one.
I'm gonna have to cast my vote.
The homemade version--
- Took hours.
- About four hours to make,
so the time category it definitely gets knocked some points.
- Totally. - This, we got it in--
- What, like 10 minutes? - 10 minutes.
- Cost wise the homemade one is more expensive
but you can make way more of them
so if we'd made breakfast for 16 people,
maybe that's more cost-effective.
- I think we could have.
- Our own time included,
then the homemade are way more expensive.
For me, I am such a homemade person.
I will always go for homemade stuff,
even though McDonald's ones are very good.
I think taste-wise, the homemade one wins for me.
- For me, I would say that
the taste is so similar.
I would give this one a little extra points for taste.
I'm not gonna lie, the homemade muffin,
you can taste the difference there.
You know, it's a little spongier.
It's so minuscule, the difference.
There's something nostalgic about
the McDonald's Egg McMuffin.
The time it took to make these
is really a deal breaker for me.
So I'm gonna vote McDonald's all the way.
You know what, on a fun Saturday or Sunday
with a lot of time, maybe I would do this.
What I like McDonald's for is the ease and the convenience
and we made a really good one,
and that's what I'm proud of.
- I feel like for me the homemade one wins.
But they are so close.
They're so close.
- Look at what we created.
We made this, and you know what?
It tastes so good as well.
- It's amazing.
- Wow, high five.
- What recipe do you wanna spend four hours on next?
- Oh God, you know what,
comment below if you've ever done
something like this before
or if you have any homemade swaps
of your favorite fast food.
- If I was presented with the choice of
do you wanna spend four hours making the homemade one
or do I wanna go to McDonald's for five minutes,
I would definitely choose the McDonald's one.
This is a lot of effort for this.
Thank you McDonald's for doing that for me.