How McDonald's Achieves The Perfect Golden Brown Color For Its Chocolate Chip Cookies. (It's Not A Special Oven)

McDonald's is famous for more than just its Happy Meal. Its chocolate chip cookies landed high on Chowhound's ranking of the best McDonald's desserts. They're gooey, warm, and the perfect golden brown color. But the process to achieve this golden hue is not from a special oven. The fast food chain adds caramel color to the cookies to create that fresh-out-of-the-oven look. 

Caramel colors are made by heating sugar, most often high-dextrose corn syrup, with food-grade reactants like acids, alkalis, or ammonium compounds, similar to how you'd make caramel at home with cream of tartar to prevent it from crystallizing. Manufacturers use it to simulate deeper brown colors, such as those you might find in gravies, colas, or perfectly baked cookies. While there have been concerns raised about its safety, the most recent studies, published in the January 2018 issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology, determined that caramel colors are generally safe when consumed as intended. 

McDonald's isn't the only fast food chain to use caramel color. It's so commonly used in products like dark sodas, sauces and gravies, beers and liquors, baked goods, and candies that there's virtually no restaurant that doesn't use it in some form, even if they aren't responsible for adding it. 

It may seem like McDonald's is using a cheat code for fresh-looking cookies, but it's not a huge surprise. McDonald's also uses brown sugar in its cookie recipe, which contributes to the browning of the cookie through the twin processes of the Maillard reaction and caramelization. However, the caramel color helps ensure the brown color is consistent so you always get the same cookie, no matter where you order it from. 

That's a bonus for fans of the chocolate chip cookies, who are likely happy for any leg up their favorite dessert can get to avoid the dreaded list of McDonald's discontinued desserts.