The new Santa’s Christmas Crème Puff at Universal Orlando is a beauty! Still, does the Chantilly cream and mocha cookie butter filling deliver? The Holidays at Universal Orlando celebration happens daily through January 4, 2026.
Friends, foodies, and theme park enthusiasts, we have seen things. We’ve eaten questionable churros, sampled hot dogs that defy physics, and somehow survived the old version of green eggs and ham at Universal Islands of Adventure. Still, nothing prepared us for the Santa’s Christmas Crème Puff, the new, aggressively festive treat now gracing the cases at San Francisco Pastry Company and Croissant Moon Bakery this Universal Orlando holiday season.
This puff is, without a doubt, a work of art. The official menu description for Santa’s Christmas Creme Puff reads: Choux pastry, eggnog pastry cream, butter crust, and candied cranberries.
Santa’s Christmas Crème Puff Appearance: A Red Carpet Dessert
On the “Universal Foodie Scorecard,” this treat deserves a standing ovation. We’re talking a Puff of Pure Pageantry. It’s flawlessly shaped, glistening with a holiday glaze, and looks like it just stepped off a float in the Macy’s parade. This puff is gorgeous. It knows it’s gorgeous. It’s got that “I’m too beautiful to be eaten” energy, which, naturally, made us want to devour it immediately. This, along with the Elegant Ornament, provides guests with pretty treats.
It’s everything a theme park snack should be: vibrant, highly Instagrammable, and a testament to the fact that Universal’s bakers have a secret laboratory where they perfect the structural integrity of desserts under Florida humidity. We took 17 photos. We almost started a fan club for its delicate exterior. Almost!
But then, we cut it open.
The Interior: The Mocha Cookie Butter Betrayal
Inside this shell of confectionery perfection is the filling: Chantilly cream and mocha cookie butter. A lineup that sounds like a dream team of holiday flavors. Like the culinary equivalent of an A-list ensemble cast. Instead, we got… a subplot.
Once you cut this treat open, it loses its pretty appearance. Also, note that it has a small chocolate piece shaped like a reindeer (or so we were told). If Santa’s Christmas Crème Puff looks a bit too much like a Mickey-shaped chocolate piece, you are not alone!
The Chantilly cream was delicate, doing its job of being light and vaguely sweet. However, the mocha cookie butter? Bless its heart, it was trying. It was doing its best to be a rich, decadent, dark, and broody element, but it ended up tasting like a confused, coffee-flavored shortening.
It’s as if the flavor profile was given the script, but then decided to improv the whole thing, resulting in a texture that was oddly thick and a performance that was overly sweet, missing the robust “mocha” and “cookie butter” punch we were expecting. Our initial “Mmm” quickly turned into a contemplative “Hmm?” followed by a very definitive, disappointed “Oh.”
The Flavor Fabrication
The biggest surprise was the filling’s texture. It felt less like fluffy cream and more like heavy pudding, stubbornly clinging to the roof of our mouths. It was dense, and while we applaud the kitchen for trying to create a unique holiday flavor profile, the result was a dessert that couldn’t get out of its own way. We tried this three times. Each time, we found the puff to be too dense for most guests.
It’s like ordering a delicate chiffon cake and being served a single, brightly colored brick of marzipan. You appreciate the novelty of the shape, but your taste buds are screaming, “WAIT, THIS ISN’T AIRY AND DELICATE!”
Santa’s Christmas Crème Puff: Choose Wisely
The Santa’s Christmas Crème Puff is proof that you can’t judge a holiday pastry by its perfectly sculpted, shimmering cover. It’s the handsome holiday guest who says all the right things, but then tells a five-minute story about the time they ate sand.
While we recommend taking a picture with this beautiful treat (it truly is magnificent!), we must, sadly, advise that there are much better Universal Orlando holiday food options out there. Find a decadent crepe at Central Park Crepes, track down a holiday Voodoo Doughnut, or just drink a hot Butterbeer. Your stomach and your Instagram feed will thank you for the photo op, but your actual taste buds deserve a better Christmas present. If we were to rate this on a scale of one to ten, this is probably a five or six.
For more theme park dining reviews, visit MSM News every weekday at noon Eastern Time. As always, eat like you mean it!
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