Restaurant Chains' Holiday-Themed Menu Items: The Naughty & The Nice

According to some of the country's biggest chain restaurants, the holiday season can be wrapped up in three or four words: gingerbread, peppermint, eggnog and maybe red velvet, too. Yep. Come this time of year, right after Thanksgiving, we are bombarded with overly sweet, overly used -- and sometimes misused -- classic holiday flavors. Sometimes the seasonal items taste quite nice, but other times they are positively naughty.

And yet, for almost all of these holiday products, there is a sort of cult following. Why else would food companies continue to bring back these products year after year, and continue to spend time and money dreaming up new ways to infuse these sugars and spices in whatever edible product they can imagine?

Take Outback Steakhouse's Gingerbread Martini; this seasonal cocktail returns every holiday season. It is made with gingerbread flavor, Kahlua, "salted" with graham crackers and topped with a true gingerbread man cookie -- sounds totally over the top. Yet, there are people out there that just love this cocktail. So much so that they search for the recipe online, or they test and taste and test their own concoction trying in vain to replicate Outback's.

Here is a look at some of the most famous holiday-themed items. Let us know in the comments below which gets your holiday spirit soaring.

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Comments

[Karl Wilder]

08:33 PM on 12/02/2011

I missed the nice ones. The ones you talk about all sound pretty gross.

[Greatest Darthfruit]

05:08 PM on 12/02/2011

Now that's a lot of sugar! Hope diabetic patients never try them. Deadly desserts for everyone, in fact.

[MJinCanada]

10:52 AM on 12/02/2011

The eggnog pancakes are all wrong, wrong, wrong.

I put extra eggs and a little cream into my regular (scratch) pancake recipe and include a little cinnamon and nutmeg as well as vanilla or touch of rum. It makes scrumptious eggnog flavoured pancakes.

BTW, the best Christmassy flavourings for hot chocolate are peppermint schnapps, amaretto, Grand Marnier or Frangelico (hazelnut flavoured liqueur). If you want to got without the alcohol, you can buy peppermint, orange and almond flavourings -- or stir a tablespoon of Nutella into the hot chocolate for extra rich hazelnut chocolate.

[paraprajnameta1]

08:13 PM on 12/01/2011

Think...must have gone...into...dia...betic coma. Blood crystaliiiiiiiiz....ing]\/-./,m';2^>

[Greatest Darthfruit]

05:10 PM on 12/02/2011

thought ... thtee ... same... thhingg!...

[gfgarv]

07:40 PM on 12/01/2011

That holiday pie looks like some sort of bacteria. The cranberry chicken tendercrisp looks good if you want your stomach pumped for Christmas. These are some of the nastiest things I've ever seen on a menu. I wonder how much eggnog you'd have to drink to make those eggnog pancakes seem edible.

[Corky-chan]

07:25 PM on 12/01/2011

I would also like to inform you HuffPost it's not CARAMEL. It's BUTTER RUM! So you might want to fix that mistake. And the eggnog tastes different this year. I am an IHOP employee. We had them two years ago, and it tasted much better. This year they're more...bland. But if you don't layer it with the "goopy" mixture, and top it with the right amount of cinnamon and sugar on top with drizzle of butter rum, tastes pretty good. And butter rum is iffy to begin with, putting caramel on it is much better. And the calorie count for this is much less than the calorie count for say a CFS breakfast there as well. That in and of itself is 1800 calories. The eggnog pancakes are made with lemon batter, so that might also be a reason people don't like it. If so, try it with just buttermilk batter (plain pancake). It all depends on how it's made, cooked, and if it's to your tastes. It obviously wasn't to yours.

[sherriesfaith]

09:22 PM on 12/01/2011

Not for sure what you mean when you say it's not caramel, it's buttered rum? If you mean Brulee it is - Crème brûlée ( /ˌkrɛm bruːˈleɪ/; French pronunciation: [kʁɛm bʁyle]),[1] also known as burnt cream, crema catalana, or Trinity cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. It is normally served cold. If you mean the drink Starbucks is serving for the holiday is buttered run and not caramel? Well, wrong again. http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/caramel-brulee-latte

[Corky-chan]

04:11 PM on 12/03/2011

Please reread my post one more time. I did not say buttered. Only Butter. Many differences, so go hunting again on your own. That is ridiculous. Just like caramel, chocolate, and many other things are a syrup base. As is butter rum. Just like in your coffee drinks, you are receiving a syrup based flavoring of say maple spice, caramel, mocha, french vanilla. It is usually monen or another brand. If I meant creme brulee, I would've put that. If I also meant Starbucks, I would've put that. Again, reread that I am a current IHOP employee. So I am quite sure what my products are made of as I try and experiment with everything to give my customer's satisfication of knowing when it tastes horrible, too sweet, too bland, and how to describe the flavor. Seeing as you are being ignorant, I suggest you go to your local IHOP, or even visit online and please read their recipes and descriptions for the eggnog pancakes. Thank you for taking the time to read my message, but next time, please read more carefully. It would've avoided you the hassle of unneeded searching for something you obviously highlighted and posted into the post. Please know what you're talking about, before speaking nonsene. You will sound more coherent and intelligent next time. This is no one-up situation where you make it sound like I was babbling like an idiot. I know what I meant.

[dominatr37]

06:56 PM on 12/01/2011

Those were actually very good. I had them a few weeks back.

[Patchy]

06:53 PM on 12/01/2011

My tummy growled looking at all these pictures... yummy, yummy!

[Bluemoon3256]

06:47 PM on 12/01/2011

They all look disgusting

[mwnyy]

07:51 PM on 12/01/2011

Right you are, ick

[xxgreyeyes]

06:23 PM on 12/01/2011

Blegh, that McDonald's holiday pie looks awful!

[Kate Woodlief]

05:43 PM on 12/01/2011

I've had the Sonic Red Velvet Cheesecake Blast and I have to agree, it is all kinds of wrong. The texture of the cheesecake pieces is nauseating, they're chewy like little pieces of used gum, not creamy like you would expect cheesecake to be. Totally disgusting!

[jenniferkizzy]

05:15 PM on 12/01/2011

i think i'm going vegan as soon as possible ugh shivers ugh gross

[xxgreyeyes]

06:23 PM on 12/01/2011

I was vegan for 3 years. I think that McDonald's thing looks most disgusting.

[Patience Farmer]

04:51 PM on 12/01/2011

I've had Outbacks Gingerbread Martini and it is really good.

[nkp1988]

03:34 PM on 12/01/2011

Forgot to mention Denny's pumpkin flavored pancakes! DA bomb!

[Ellieshay88]

03:04 PM on 12/01/2011

would have been nice posting all the nutritional facts. that would have landed 98% on the NAUGHTY list.

[deweydecimal]

04:12 PM on 12/01/2011

Touché