It’s a bit surprising that McDonald’s Kit Kat Banana Split McFlurry, with its inclusion of bananas, doesn’t have a Minions tie-in. The McFlurry cups could’ve totally been dressed up as Minions. But I guess it would’ve been weird to have two tie-in promotions simultaneously.
The latest treat from The Golden Arches has every flavor you’d expect from a banana split — chocolate from the Kit Kat, vanilla from the soft serve, strawberry from the crispy cereal, and banana from the freeze-dried fruit pieces. However, every chocolate piece in the cup isn’t part of a Kit Kat. There are also semisweet and dark chocolate chips in the mix.
When McDonald’s started using flavored cereal pieces, beginning with its Strawberry Shortcake McFlurry, I thought it was a cheap way to get flavor into the soft serve. Why not use a sauce, I thought at the time. But doing it this way has grown on me. I mean, it’s not ideal, but they ensure there’s some texture with the treat, and most of the time, they’ve turned out decent-tasting.
The Kit Kat pieces are roughly as small as the chocolate chips, so they aren’t very substantial. They also don’t have the crispiness I expect from the classic candy bar. However, the other mix-ins make you think there are larger chunks. The strawberry-flavored cereal (which, because of their color, don’t seem to be the same ones from the Strawberry Shortcake McFlurry) has a crispiness that could be mistaken for Kit Kat’s wafers, and the snap and flavor of the chocolate chips could be thought of as the coating around the wafers.
The banana flavor depends on whether you get one of those freeze-dried fruit pieces. If you get one on your spoon, you’ll get a noticeable natural flavor that completes the image of a banana split. In fact, getting all the flavors associated with the colorful dessert with this McFlurry is much easier than trying to do it with an actual banana split. Speaking of the dessert, I’m surprised this didn’t come with the treat’s obligatory whipped cream topping and cherry.
Overall, I immensely enjoyed the Kit Kat Banana Split McFlurry, but I might be biased as I love the yellow fruit in many forms, even freeze-dried. It captures all the flavors of a banana split, but I wonder if adding Kit Kat was even necessary. I guess “Kit Kat Banana Split” looks and sounds better than “Banana Split.” But if this returns next year as the Banana Split McFlurry with the same chocolate chips and without Kit Kat, I believe I’d still like it.
Purchased Price: $4.99
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 540 calories, 17 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 85 grams of carbohydrates, 70 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 12 grams of protein.