I’ve long wondered how Universal Orlando chooses fanciful food items like Butterbeer crepes and more for its theme parks. Not all menu items are created the same way, but this year for the theme park’s popular Mardi Gras event, I learned they actually held a competition to get a slew of the chefs on staff involved. Who knew there was such a fun story about how Universal Studios’ fun new dessert came together?
Mardi Gras kicked off on February 7 at Universal Studios, and among the things you need to know about the festivities, there’s a food story about the 2026 festival that’s delightful. CinemaBlend was able to try some tasty morsels and talk to executive sous chef of research and development Chef Christopher Colòn about the latest iteration of the Mardi Gras menu in its 31st year. There’s really only one word you need to focus on, however: Flancocho.
The Fun Story Behind How Universal Orlando’s Delicious New Dessert Came Together
The Puerto Rico booth at Mardi Gras often features fan-favorite items. This year in particular, the booth at Mardi Gras added what I would argue is an important and special dish, the Coconut Flancocho. It's a really solid entry on a menu that already boasts a lot of popular dishes. However, the story behind how the dessert made it on the menu is even sweeter.
This year we have a Coconut Flancocho. There’s actually a really great story on that, as well. We have so many talent Hispanic and Latin chefs in the production kitchen. So we actually held a competition this year amongst our hourly team members to see who could kind of bring their culture and their story to life. It was about 25 of them in the kitchen, cooked for all of us. We had a fun competition and the flancocho really won.
This allowed everyone with interest who was already prepping to work hard for the themed event to be involved in a more inspiring and motivating way. I love the story, and coincidentally, I love the dessert.
Why You Gotta Try It.
Look, if you’ve ever been to Universal Orlando around Mardi Gras, you’ve probably had the King Cake. Yes, it’s cute, it’s tasty, and it comes with a little baby, but the coconut flancocho blows it out of the water. Not even hating on the King Cake; this is just a fact.
I was able to try the delicious new menu item. Half cake and half flan, that dessert is one of the moistest, tastiest morsels of food I’ve ever put in my mouth. It’s rich, sweet, buttery, and fruity all at the same time. It’s so good it makes me wonder how amazing the other Puerto Rican food items the chefs created were.
So, I asked. Chef Colòn said another dessert came out of the competition they loved so much they found a way to incorporate it into the menu as a vegan dessert.
There’s a couple of secrets I can’t say. However, our vegan dessert, we had out there in the field was originally proposed for the Puerto Rican competition. We loved it so much, we adjusted it a little bit. It’s essentially a little play on trembleque (a Puerto Rican coconut pudding), so that’s out there, fully vegan, absolutely delicious.
There’s always some innovative and fun food items to try at Mardi Gras, but I love the creativity behind rallying the team to get everyone excited about the possibility of new menu items, and also to give people creative pride for their cultures and how they can share their personal backgrounds with parkgoers in unique ways. If you want to give the dessert a whirl, it’ll cost you $6.99.
Running from February 7th through April 4th, Mardi Gras is already my favorite event of the year, and one of the things I love about the it is that Universal always strives to bring in something new and not just repeat old favorites. That’s true of the food, but it’s true of the musical guests in every year and more as well. (We’ve already established I’m obsessed with Portugal. The Man playing this year’s festival.) It’s a good mix, and now that I know how some of these ideas are being generated, I find it even sweeter.
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