Above is the McDonald’s bacon double cheeseburger for £1.99 available at all outlets.

It doesn’t look much like it’s image on the display as you order it and if you go into McDonald’s you can watch as some surly student pulls each of the elements of your burger out of little plastic trays and unceremoniously pile them on your bun. My favourite is the little gun which fires the sauce into a perfectly measured out blob onto the top of your burger. It’s then quickly wrapped and in your hands in seconds. It serves its purpose, its fast, it fills a gap and it leaves some taste in your mouth as it flys down your throat.

But i want more.

I want a bacon double cheeseburger that fills a void and leaves a lasting good taste.

I want to know what’s in it and i want to know it was prepared with love.

So this is what inspired me to fire up the Weber mastertouch and get some coals hot.

Above is my effort, i did two smash burgers using 20 percent fat beef mince and some seasoning. Smashed them hard in the lodge cast iron pan and then grilled some bacon. I then piled the burgers and bacon with cheese slices in between and put the bun lid on top before covering with a cloche and squirting a bit of water into the pan.

The steam quickly melted the cheese and softened the bun lid.

I quickly put it all on the board, removed the lid, threw some pickle on top, squirted a big blob of sauce on top of that and then slammed the bun lid back on causing a saucy cheesy avalanche.

The result was unanimous, the depth of flavour was the biggest difference between the two burgers. The appearance was the next big thing, i put love and devotion into my burger.

It may not be as fast as McDonald’s but it’s definitely worth spending a bit more time and effort to get a much bigger reward at the end of it.