This week’s SATURDAY SIX takes a look at The Six Most Artistic Snacks at Epcot’s Festival of the Arts! When word came around that Epcot was adding another festival to its annual lineup, we were skeptical to say the least. Sure, we love the Flower & Garden and Food & Wine festivals, but did we need another one? Long story short: YES. Yes, we did.

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The festival is filled with incredible art to see (and buy) along with an even better menu of unique food and drink options. From the Trio of Savory Croissant Doughnuts to the Wild Mushroom Risotto, the festival is filled with indulgent foods, but as always we here at the SATURDAY SIX were drawn to the more sugary based options. Today we’re going to look at the most artistic snacks at the festival, along with a whole bunch of non-food related reasons detailing why we really love the Festival of the Arts. It’s basically TWO editions of the SATURDAY SIX in ONE. You’re Welcome! Let’s start this party off right with…

# 6 – Mary Blair White Chocolate Art Painting

This may be the coolest looking chocolate in the history of chocolates at Walt Disney World, a miniature Mary Blair “painting” on a chocolate easel. This is such a fantastic idea executed so flawlessly that you don’t mind paying $7 for a pretty small piece of chocolate. The chocolate itself tasted really good, even though it is so pretty we didn’t even want to eat it (but c’mon, it’s chocolate, it was gonna be eaten sooner or later).

Served at The Painter’s Palette, ($7)

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Reason We Love the Festival of the Arts: Figment’s Brush with the Masters

Epcot continually has the best scavenger hunts in any Florida theme park, thanks in part to the great souvenirs you get when accomplishing your hunt. The Easter Egg hunts are always a blast during the spring, and we also enjoyed Remy’s “Hide and Squeak” hunt during Food & Wine. For Figment’s Brush with the Masters, guests are given a blank map along with a set of stickers featuring well known paintings. You then have to go from country to country in World Showcase to match the correct country with the painting it features. In a fun twist, each of the famous painting features our favorite Epcot character, Figment!

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Once you have correctly identified all the paintings, you take take your completed map to Disney Traders (the large gift shop at the very front of World Showcase) and pick up one of four awesome pins featuring Figment. This scavenger hunt was fantastic.

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# 5 – Pop’t Art

Readers of this fine blog series should know by now that we are obsessed with anything Pop Tart related at the theme parks. The Pop-Tart Sandwich was life changing (note: we didn’t say in a good way) and the Pop-Tart Sundae is a wonderful family dessert. Turns out we also like snacks that look like Pop-Tarts. The Pop’t Art is described as an “abstract-designed sugar cookie with chocolate hazelnut filling” and it is basically a five hour energy in cookie form. The colorful icing on top of regular icing provides an extremely sweet taste, and – like a normal Pop-Tart – there is a small amount of a chocolate hazelnut filing inside. Each one is unique in design.

Available at The Painter’s Palette and Pop Eats. ($4)

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Reason We Love the Festival of the Arts: Fun Photo Ops!

In another ingenious idea, the Festival of Arts features photo ops in which guests can literally step into the frame of iconic paintings. There are WDW photographers available and these pics can be added to your PhotoPass account.

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# 4 – Artist Palette Jumbo Chocolate-Chip Cookie

A thick chocolate-chip cookie the size of an entire paper plate? We’re down with that. Oh, and it has the whimsical appearance of an artist’s palette with various icings as “paint?”  Love it. Like many of the festival’s offerings, the size of the food is great for sharing. This is a stark contrast to the growing trend at Food & Wine which could have the subtitle “Honey, I Shrunk the Serving Size” added on to it. One nice touch is that each cookie in itself is a work of art – so to speak – as the splotches of paint are added on after purchase.

Available at Cuisine Classique, The Artist’s Table, and Decadent Delights. ($5.50)

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Reason We Love the Festival of the Arts: Character Art

There are several spots in World Showcase which feature art of Disney characters. In Germany there is a painting of Snow White. Mexico has Donald Duck. Our favorite is in France, where not only is there a drawing of Belle reading a book, but it sits on an elaborate easel that look’s like it came straight from Maurice’s workshop. What a great touch.

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# 3 – Deconstructed Purple Sweet Potato Pie

The menu described the Deconstructed Purple Sweet Potato Pie as a “salted caramel, bourbon-soaked cake and marshmallow whipped cream.” You had us at bourbon-soaked.

You had us at bourbon-soaked.

This is truly next level art in the form of a dessert with some true creativity throughout the dish. It is like being at an avant-garde art show, knowing what you are looking at took a lot of skill to create, but have no idea what the meaning behind any of it actually is. It just looks cool. The actual purple sweet potato pie mousse has a great taste once your mind overcomes the weird texture.

Served at Decadent Delights. ($6.50)

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Reasons We Love Festival of the Arts: Do It Yourself Mural

In a fantastic synergy with Glidden paints, guests had the ability to work together on painting an Epcot mural. At the Expression Station, each guest was able to paint a few squares on a giant paint-by-numbers mural that ended up revealing the gorgeous art of Herb Ryman. Slowly the “big picture” (literally) comes into focus. In a way, this mural represents the spirt of the Epcot of old, recapturing imagination.

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# 2 – Triple Chocolate Mousse

The Triple Chocolate Mousse stands out from the other pieces on our list and looks like it fit right in as the capper to the 10 course meal at Victoria & Albert’s Chef’s Table or a dessert experience at Remy on the Disney Cruise Line. It’s that gorgeous. Just an amazing dessert that scores an A+ on presentation and another A+ on taste. The price at first seems a little high compared to many other desserts at the festival, but you taste every penny and then some.  It is described as “Chocolate crunch, dark chocolate sauce, and gold leaf from our Master Pastry Chef.” After finishing, we wanted to pull a Michael Scott from The Office and tell the Chef, “I am really proud of you.”

Served at The Masterpiece Kitchen. ($9.25)

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Reason We Love the Festival of the Arts: Live Artists Doing Their Thing

Throughout the festival guests have the chance to see artists working in various mediums right in front of their eyes. This is not just the classic “artist painting on an easel” either, as there are artists doing chalk work on the pavement, mural painting, and even producing art on pairs of TOMS shoes that you can purchase. We are hearing that “due to guest demand” Burgan Fine Art may be added to a future Festival of the Arts (or was that “banned?” Have to double check that on that one.)

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# 1 – White Chocolate Figment Puzzle

This just about gets a perfect overall score for the Festival of the Arts. Served on a fun cardboard artist palate, this snack allows the family to paint the white chocolate Figment puzzle using various colored icing, blue chocolate candies, and sprinkles. Let’s see: Unique design? Check. Various forms of sugar? Check. Interactive? Check. Use of Figment. Check. While this may not get the “wow” factor when it comes to taste, this is the type of snack that contains the very essence of the Disney Difference.

Served at Painter’s Palate,  . ($6.50)

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Reason We Love the Festival of the Arts: Figment Topiary

We love Figment. We love topiaries. ‘Nuff said.

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HONORABLE MENTION – Almond Frangipane Cake

This slice of cake is possible the “signature dessert” of the festival considering how much it used in all of Disney’s ads. It’s colorful, it’s fun, and it actually tastes really good. The cake itself is most, the raspberry jam has a nice sweet taste, and the chocolate icing is a great capper.

Available at Pop Eats. ($4.25)

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So there you have it: The Most Artistic Food Options at EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts! See you next weekend for the latest installment of the SATURDAY SIX, where we’ll look at something fun from the world of Disney and Universal. If you enjoyed yourself, be sure to check out The Magic, The Memories, and Merch! articles, or, for your listening pleasure, check out the E-Ticket Report podcast. You can also follow Your Humble Author on Twitter (@derekburgan).

If you enjoyed this article, you will surely like the following:

What You Need To Know Before Going to Festival of the Arts

Six Reasons We LOVE Epcot!

The Six Best Kept Secrets at Epcot

The Six Best Snacks in Epcot’s World Showcase

The Six Most Interesting, Unusual, and Strangest Gifts in Epcot’s World Showcase

Third Annual Theme Park Turkey of the Year Awards ($12.99 “Hurricane Box,” Shanghai Disneyland Etiquette Guide and more!)

Six Pieces of Disney Merchandise That Don’t Exist (But Totally Should)

Special Thanks to crack staff photographer Brandon Glover, the sommelier of Tony’s Town Square Brian Carey, the Bio-est of all Reconstructs @bioreconstruct, and blogger to the stars Megan Stump for their invaluable assistance with this article. Be sure to also check out Brandon on The Park Blogger podcast with co-hosts Aengus Mackenzie and LitemAndHyde , while fellow Potterheads may enjoy Meg’s work on the Central Florida Slug Club.

EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS go out to one our favorite families in all of Florida. Mr. LitemAndHyde along with his lovely wife and two incredible kids were INVALUABLE to the SATURDAY SIX and are considered honorary staff members with all the rights and privileges that come with.

FINAL PLUG! Did you know The 2017 Unofficial Guide to Universal Orlando has a special edition of the SATURDAY SIX in it? Finally, someone came up with an actual reason to read a book. ORDER this baby now and support SIX NATION (boy do we need a better name than that.)