The Sweet McDonald's Treat You Can Only Order In Hawaii

While quintessential McDonald's food items can be found from coast to coast — a Big Mac's the same thing in New York, Los Angeles, or Anchorage — regional McDonald's menu items are a source of fascination and envy. Who doesn't want some southern biscuits and gravy for breakfast, or a green chile double cheeseburger like the Golden Arches serves up in New Mexico?

Hawaii has been on the receiving end of some delectable exclusive McD's eats. There's the McTeri Deluxe, a teriyaki burger, and, once, you could find ramen in Aloha State McDonald's locations. A recurring treat that shows up on Hawaiian McDonald's dessert menus is the haupia pie, a fried hand pie stuffed with a jellied coconut filling. Rich, golden, and crispy, the haupia pie is a little taste of the tropics in one delicious bite. Haupia is a traditional Hawaiian dessert, so it makes sense that McDonald's adapted it into a recognizable format for the local market. Unfortunately, it's impossible to get in the continental United States.

Unlike coconut cream pie, which has ambiguous origins related to American housewives' cookbooks and the import of dried coconut, haupia is not intended to be creamy. In Hawaii, where haupia pie varieties sometimes include sweet potato or chocolate, the haupia is starchy, thanks to a thickening agent like arrowroot powder, cornstarch, or agar agar. The recipe for haupia is easy enough that even non-Hawaiians can manage it, so you can certainly try your hand at replicating this treat. 

Experimenting with deep-frying your own haupia pie creations is the closest you'll get to the McDonald's experience outside Hawaii, though. Its McD's pies are fried, including their apple pies, which is the only place in America where you can get them this way. The rest of the country has to content themselves with baked pies in the interest of healthier desserts.

If you are planning a trip to Hawaii and want a McDonald's haupia pie, you'd better hope that luck is on your side. According to the state's Reddit forum, the haupia pies tend to appear and disappear on the menu periodically, sometimes being replaced with taro pies. This is in line with McDonald's rotating its pie assortment nationally, with variations including the holiday Pie, pumpkin and crème pie, and strawberry & crème pie.