- What would you call your McGriddle?
- McAlix!
- No you can't take the "Mc"!
- Thick-Donald's (wheezes)
- Thick-Griddle...
- This ain't a McGriddle this a ThickGriddle!
- ThickGriddle, that's what it is.
It's a thick Griddle.
(cheerful music)
- Alix, I have seen you do some amazing things with food.
I know we have made some homemade versions of
the Crunchwrap Supreme, which is my favorite,
and a version of the Egg McMuffin from McDonald's.
But, we haven't made my personal favorite, the McGriddle.
The Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddle to be specific.
(triumphant music)
- I've actually never had one of those.
(wheezes) I mean I love McDonald's but I just--
I don't know I haven't had one.
- Don't you see me just skippin' around and just happy?
That's what brings smiles to my face!
- Is this what has been missing in my life?
- So I want you to make a homemade version
of the Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddle
that tastes just as good.
I don't know how that's gonna happen 'cause you
haven't tasted it before but I feel like you can do it!
Do you feel ready to do this, Alix?
- I feel ready!
Do I sound convincing? (laughs)
- Not if you're laughing after that, like...
I need a solid yes.
- Yes!
- There we go.
- Okay, so we're gonna be judging this on
three different criteria.
So there's time and effort, two is cost,
and three is taste, of course.
Listen, taste is the only category that
I'm, like, somewhat confident in.
The other two, I dunno.
So first things first, and this is probably
the trickiest part of the whole thing
is getting those pockets of syrup within
the pancake bun.
- Is it a pancake?
- It's a pancake, yeah.
So we're gonna start by heating up our maple syrup.
So I'm just gonna do a half a cup.
We do have to watch this pretty carefully
once it starts to boil.
Some of the water will start to evaporate
out of the syrup, and we'll be left with
the sugar content of the syrup.
- Man, this sounds like science, I thought we were cooking!
- (laughs) It is!
Do you like science, Julissa?
- I like food...!
- Well, it's one in the same.
I'm just gonna keep stirring this, do you wanna stir?
- Sure, why not.
- We don't want it to stick.
So there's different stages that you can
bring sugar to when it's over heat.
So there's a soft ball, a hard ball,
a hard crack, a soft crack...
(voices echoing)
- So once it starts to actually bubble
then we can turn off the temperature.
I think if we can pull this part off...
- Wait, what do you mean "pull this off?"
Like, we don't know if this is gonna work?
- I dunno...
- (laughs)
- Listen, I haven't done this before!
We're just gonna have to see at the end
if this was worth the effort.
- Or my time!
Although, if you're home and you do this,
I'm sure it's gonna be less calories.
- You'll know all the ingredients in it,
it won't be anything kind of weird...
- And you know somebody didn't drop it and pick it back up.
- Once it starts to bubble, it goes up really fast,
and it's important to hit the right temp.
You also don't wanna leave your thermometer in there.
A lot of people just leave it sitting there,
but if the thermometer gets too hot, it can explode.
- (yelling) Take it out!
(both laugh)
It's getting thick.
- Yeah, so that's because a lot of that water
has evaporated out now.
I think we're pretty good, we have to work
a little bit quickly when we pour this out.
Okay, we're gonna pour it...
and that's super super hot so you don't wanna touch that.
And now I'm gonna quickly just kinda thin it out.
- So this is gonna get hard, obviously.
It already looks like its getting hard.
- Yeah, so we can just put this to the side now
and move on to the pancakes.
I'm gonna do just a basic buttermilk pancake recipe,
but we're making it from scratch so it should
be really good.
So we're gonna start with our dry ingredients.
So if you wanna pour this, this is two cups of flour.
- All of it?
- Well, you can go slow, but pour it
into here so we sift it.
so we're doing baking soda and baking powder.
- They're not the same?
- No!
- Dang, I gotta get my cooking skills up.
- Some sugar, and then some salt.
So we're just gonna give this a little mix,
and that is our dry ingredients.
We can set this aside and move over to our wet.
We'll start with our buttermilk, and then two eggs.
And then I'm just gonna give this a whisk.
- Yeah, it smells like a pancake already.
- So then I'm just gonna drizzle in the melted butter...
- You better make sure you're not on a diet
tryna eat this, 'cause this is not it.
- But one of the nice things about making it
yourself is that you know exactly what's in there.
So now we have a little well in the center
of our dry ingredients, and you can just slowly
pour the wet ingredients into..
- Into the little well, into the hole?
- Would try and take the easy route
and just put everything together.
'cause then I don't have to wash an extra dish.
- If we hadn't mixed all those ingredients separately,
then right now we'd have to really mix
to make sure everything's well incorporated.
And you don't wanna over mix pancake batter
you actually want some lumps in there,
that's just gonna create a fluffier pancake.
That's the pancake!
- So it's done?
- It's pretty much done.
So when I was looking at these McGriddles,
I noticed that they have an M on the top, for McDonald's...
- Are you gonna put a J?
- I was gonna put an A but... (laughs)
- This is a dual effort!
- What about one can be a J and then one can be an A?
- All right, I'm cool with that.
- I dunno, I have this theory that that I could do it
with a squeeze bottle...
- I'd be pissed right now if I was doing this (mumbles).
Look at all this mess!
- I wanna crack up our syrup so we have that ready
for when we start crankin' out some pancakes.
So if you wanna just start whacking this,
take out your aggressions...
- I got a lot of things I'm aggressive...
- Perfect, okay.
So we know we've cooked it enough because
our candy actually shatters, so you can keep going.
We need little tiny pieces...
- This is what I did to my ex boyfriend's car.
(yelling) I'm just kidding!
- So I'm just using a cast iron for our pancakes,
but you can use a non stick pan, too.
We're gonna try to do this J.
I'm doin' the J for you.
- The J's gonna go now?
- Yeah.
Because I need to get that difference in color,
I'm gonna start with the J, and that'll mean
that it'll cook a little bit.
Wait, should I have done it backwards?
- Well you're the chef...
- And so give that a little time to cook
and then we'll do the rest of the pancake
so that ill have a little bit of a difference in color.
- Oohh!
- So I have a ring mold because I have
a really perfectly round pancake bun.
I'm just gonna spray it to make sure our pancake
doesn't stick to it, though, and then I'm gonna
put the rest of the batter on top.
And I don't wanna fill it up too much
because it need to cook all the way through.
So now, we're just gonna sprinkle some of our
syrup crystals in there.
And I'm doing the smaller pieces because I want
to give them time to melt.
I have my stove also on a lower heat,
just so everything has time to cook through.
And now I'm just gonna top this with more batter.
- So this is just the top layer of the McGriddle?
This gon' be one (yelling) thick ass McGriddle!
- If you ain't thick, you ain't it.
- (laughs)
so once we start to see air bubbles popping at the top
of the surface of the pancake, just like any other time
you've cooked pancakes, you know it's ready.
It's a lot of patience in this recipe.
There we go!
We did it!
- You did it!
Wow!
- Okay, it's a little crispy, but it's not horrible, right?
And there's the J!
Oh, it's more of an L.
- Its okay.
We know it's supposed to be a J.
Yeah. But I feel like it's perfect, 'cause the
McGriddle's very brown...
- Is it?
- You mean you've never even seen a picture of it?
- I looked at the picture, but...
- It looks good though.
- The next one just do an even lower temp.
- Oohhh!
With my backwards J!
- It does smell really good, though!
- It smells delicious.
- Let's do another one and see if we can do it even better.
And this time the right way J?
- This is definitely taking a long time.
By now I would've went, got my McGriddle,
came back home, ate it, watch my soap opera
while I was eating it, finish, probably tooken a nap...
I'm probably on my fifth dream in my nap.
- I have no comment.
- No rebuttal!
- So here's the problem, because I made my pancake
so light and fluffy, the buns are a little big.
- I like big buns.
- Same.
- [Both] Oohhh!
- That looks like a J.
- She cute!
There is a little J on there!
- The J is there.
- This is a better thickness, too.
This ones better.
So we'll make another one of that.
I think we can crack a little bit more of these...
- I got it.
This is my favorite part.
- I'll do an A.
If we do this--
This is the hardest part.
The rest is smooth sailing.
- Yeah, there's a huge difference.
And the A came out great.
- The A goes on top.
- She knew what she was doing, you guys.
It looks good, it looks like it has crispy edges...
- Yeah, it looks pretty good.
- This is like, out of a line...
- A machine.
No machines here.
Just these machines! (wheezes)
- (imitating drums) Ba-dum shhh!
- She done!
We got like, three more layers to go, but...
- A thick griddle!
Ima start selling these.
Stay tuned.
So now we're moving on to the sausage component.
I just decided to do a classic breakfast sausage patty.
So we have a pound of ground pork, and we're gonna do
a little salt, a teaspoon of pepper, some brown sugar
for a little sweetness, some crushed red pepper flakes,
some garlic powder, we're doing some fresh thyme,
and some fresh sage.
So we're going a little fancy here with our sausage.
So just work that into the sausage, make sure
it's all in there evenly.
This is just kind of like a classic breakfast sausage.
- I'm sure they don't put all of this.
Like I saw you chop up that thyme...
- I did, I did it myself.
No machines here!
Again, I already used that joke.
- Do it, I like it.
- Except for these ones!
- (yelling) Bam!
(both laugh)
- So now we're gonna get in there with our hands
to form the patties.
- Okay, I'm gonna take off my rings...
- So we're just gonna take a little of the pork mixture
and form a thin patty.
- We also made a thick griddle, so I feel like
it needs to be a little bit thicker so that
it could all be...
- Balance out, right?
- I don't want all pancake, I need some protein in there!
- So we're doing two, I guess we'll just
pick the best one, right?
You're going pretty thick with that.
Its kind of like a burger, huh?
Press your thumb down into the middle
and make a little bit of a hole.
When it cooks, this'll kind of expand
and create more of a flat patty.
She thick!
- (quietly) It smells so good...
- We're gonna start to multitask now.
So we're just gonna whisk up the eggs
but we should wash our hands first, though.
- Let's go that.
Someone wash this for us!
- So while those are cooking, why don't we just start
on the eggs so we can do a little bit of multitasking.
So crack the egg into the bowl...
- I'm not the best cracker.
- Perfect!
Good job.
Now we'll whisk that up, pinch of salt, and some pepper...
Just gonna give these a turn so they're cooking evenly.
All right so why don't we just go ahead
and put the sausage in the fridge so we don't
waste it and we can use it for later.
We don't let anything go to waste here.
Okay, so sausage is going, eggs are almost ready
to go on, and then we're just headin' into assembly.
So I'm just keeping these warm...
And the cheese goes on the bottom, but you know that.
Usually it's American cheese, but we're doing real cheddar.
Another upgrade.
Which patty should we use for this one?
- I feel like we could use that one.
- This one?
Lift 'er up!
Okay, sausage is on.
She's grown though, she lookin' pretty good!
So we're gonna eat this one later, I guess.
We finally made it.
- The eggs.
No breakfast sandwich is complete without eggs.
- The thing that makes the McGriddle different though
that I noticed is the egg is more like a folded egg
than the patty of egg that you see on an Egg McMuffin.
So we're gonna do, kind of like, an omelet style...
People tend to cook eggs on way too high of a heat,
you actually wanna cook eggs on a relatively low heat.
So we're gonna start to cook this.
I'm gonna lift the edges and pour the raw egg
under it, so we are cooking all of the egg.
So then we got our sheet.
Wow, I'm getting a little nervous now.
Its McGo time!
- You McDid it.
- I McDid it!
I love a good McPun.
Flip it over like that, so we have a moon shape,
and then we're gonna flip 'er over like that.
- All of that?
- We're going thick, we already said this!
- I feel like half of that would be sufficient.
You're the chef.
- Should I go back to the half moon and just cut it in half?
And we got our egg.
Glide 'er on.
Wow!
- And then we're gonna flip it, 'cause you need the J.
- The J on the top.
Wow, we did it!
- Let's just go for the A.
(imitating shocking music) Dun dun dun!
(electronic music)
- We did it!
- Aw, you did it!
- We did it, we did it.
I have to say, she looks pretty good.
You obviously get more food with ours.
- This is true.
And it looks so good!
- You got more than a few extra bites with ours.
- For sure.
- I was nervous to see it, I didn't know what to expect,
but I dunno, this is tiny.
But you do have this nice folded egg...
- It definitely took a long time to make this.
- It took some effort.
- I feel like if you're in your kitchen
and you're making this for a bunch of people,
it's not gonna be that bad.
'Cause you're whippin' up a lotta stuff.
- You shouldn't just make one, you should make a few
'cause then it balances out the cost and the time.
But I just feel like I'll feel so much better
after eating this, than this, because I worked for this.
- I would be going to a sit down restaurant
and having this one.
- Of course you're spending a little more money
than you would if you're making the McGriddle
but that's because you're buying ingredients
that you can use for a long time.
So for the most important component, the taste...
- (imitating shocking music) Bum bum bum!
- (yelling) Where did you get that knife, oh my God!
- You gotta be ready around me.
- Oh, she's so thick...
Oohhh, look how pretty!
- I'm so curious as to what this looks like.
- You could tell that ours is so fresh.
- The cheese looks good, and also you can see
the little syrup in both of them
which I'm really happy about.
We're doing the normal one first, right?
- I know what this tastes like already.
- I don't, but I'm excited.
You really like this.
Don't get too into it!
- I told you guys, I love McGriddles.
- It's true though, it's one note.
I feel like we're gonna have a lot more flavor in mine.
- And I'm not a child anymore, I'm an adult.
- (laughs) We are graduating today.
- Cheers.
- This f****** good!
- Definitely way more flavor.
More complex, for sure.
- I think the biggest component that's different here
is the sausage.
- Way more flavor in the sausage.
- The sausage takes it to another level.
In this I can tell this is pancake.
- I just have to say, hands down, this is so much better.
- This is bomb.
Interestingly enough, I do feel like with all the butter
and everything we put in there, I still feel like
this is not bad for me.
It's almost gone...
- Are you sad it's almost gone?
It's always your final bite.
Well, I'm so proud we were able to get all the components.
- (quietly) I love you...
- Well now you can make it yourself again!
- Mm-hmm, I'll just call you.
When it comes to time and effort, McDonald's wins.
- It does.
Cost wise, it's kind of a toss up because although
we spent more money buying ingredients for this,
we can make so many more of them.
- Yeah, that's true.
- But also gotta consider time is money, too.
- Time is money...
I always think of that.
- We spent a good couple of hours makin' this.
- But when it comes to the flavor, and the taste!
We won.
- So Julissa, are you ever gonna go to McDonald's again?
- Alix, are you gonna call me tp tell me you're
making these for me once a week?
- (whispers) No.
- Then McDonald's it is!
(both laugh)
(electronic music)