The best fast food desserts in the U.S., ranked

It’s not that Shake Shack’s creamy AF shakes are good despite coming from a fast-food joint. No, these are as good as any shake from a fancy burger joint. I’ll take the Shake Shack shakes simple, in vanilla or chocolate form, rich and deeply flavored with, well, yeah, vanilla or chocolate. But the shake list here goes deep, like Strawberry Frosted Donut, Chocolate Salted Caramel and Peaches and Cream. There’s even non-dairy options for those of us—no judgment—who went a little too hard with extra cheese on the burger.

This was already the best of the deep-fried fast food apple pie among the many I’ve devoured in my gluttonous lifetimes. It has the requisite crispy dough and gooey apple pie filling, but the addition here of cinnamon sugar is a nice touch. But the best part? These things cost a buck each for a hefty pie the size of your average wallet, which won’t be harmed much by eating three.

While I never refuse a burger at Five Guys (and a generous scoop of peanuts, of course), the real draw is the chain's desserts. Handspun shakes vary from the traditional (think vanilla and chocolate) to the avant-garde mix-ins like bacon—and I’m serious right here. I can't possibly deny ourselves that scoop of whipped cream to polish it all off.

A hand-held slice of crispy apple pie is basically a fall essential. I just might be inclined to ask for seconds. Popeye's Cinnamon Apple Pie is slightly more expensive than Taco Bell's equivalent, but it's a little bit closer to what you would expect from a traditional deep-fried hand pie.

It's a classic for a reason: The vanilla soft serve hot fudge combo is exactly how you remember it, with its creamy vanilla soft serve and smothered in chocolate hot fudge topping. It goes well no matter what type of intricate sandwich-and-fries concoction came before it.

Auntie Anne’s is a global chain of counters dispensing sweet and savory soft pretzels with a variety of toppings and dips. The Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel Nuggets are like chips: Once you have one, you can't stop. I’ll take mine, typically ordered from a mall kiosk that’s filling the entire place with Auntie Annie’s perfume, with cream cheese dip.

A tribute to favorite candy bars, Sonic Blasts celebrate each treat—Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Butterfinger, Snickers and so on—by mixing a dollop of ice cream, cookie crumbles and syrup in with bits of the confections. I’m partial to the Oreo-flavored Blast, where cookie chunks float in vanilla soft serve.

That summertime favorite gets a frosted remix, and it's definitely better than anything you whipped up at your local lemonade stand (sorry, kid). The bad news is that this is seasonal, but the good news is that it only makes it that much more special that we have to wait.

It would be hard to go wrong with layers of chocolate and vanilla mousse in a cookie crumble crust with whipped cream and bits of chocolate on top, right? The addition of chocolate syrup forming stripes on the top of the pie adds a nice touch of that Hershey’s bitterness, and while I think its overt sweetness gave me an immediate toothache, it’s worth noting this thing clocks in at less than two bucks.

A cross between a milkshake and scoop of ice cream, the frozen dairy Frosty has delighted customers since Wendy's opened—was among the first five items introduced on the Wendy's menu—and I have a feeling I'll be ordering it for dessert until the end of time.

Like ordering the margherita to assess a pizza parlor’s skills, the chocolate frosted is a baseline donut. Here, of course, it’s a cake donut, rich and generally moist, with a modest amount of sweet glaze over the top. Sure, I’d prefer it if the glaze had a crispiness to it, and yeah, it left an odd chocolate cakey aftertaste in my mouth, but this is a solid donut in the pantheon of cake donuts.

The bite-sized snacks are soft, golden, cinnamon goodness made from buttery pastry dough and complete with a frosty filling—almost as if French Toast upgraded to dessert. I won't judge if you make these bad boys a breakfast item.

As the name suggests, this is a rich chocolate cake with a slightly crunchy crust and a warm liquid chocolate center that flows out at the nudge of a fork. In essence, it’s a chocolate lover's perfect end to a meal, if you’re like me, you probably drunk-ordered at the end of the night.

Though they may be little, Jack in the Box's mini churros are fiercely packed with cinnamon. It takes your typical, garden-variety carnival staple churro, chops it into bite-sized bits and pipes a line of melted, gooey cinnamon sugar through the middle. The mini size turns what was already a finger food into something easily popped while navigating highway traffic.

Essentially just a personal-sized version of KFC’s bundt cake, this is a pretty simple affair of chocolate cake striped in sweet glaze. I found it reminiscent of office birthday cake, meaning it’s nobody’s favorite, but you’re also going to take a portion when Milton passes a slice.