State Fair of Texas, 2026 Big Tex Choice Awards Sweet Finalist
Flan is delicate. Custard, barely holding itself together, the kind of dessert a fryer should ruin on contact.
The Garza family fried it anyway. It’s not the first trophy this family has taken home for exactly that kind of dare.
What This Thing Actually Is
Start with a warm, crispy buñuelo shell, bowl shaped. Fill it with homemade arroz con leche and a scoop of cinnamon Blue Bell Ice Cream.
Then comes the actual dare: a deep fried flan, wrapped inside a delicate puff pastry shell so the custard survives the fryer instead of collapsing in it. Finish with whipped cream and a caramel sauce drizzle.
A dessert bowl holding rice pudding, ice cream, and a custard that technically shouldn’t have survived being fried, all in the same order.
The Part That’s Actually Funny
This is a three generation operation.
Trini and Benilde Garza introduced fajitas to the Fair back in 1983, after Benilde tried eight times to get a concession booth before it finally happened. Their son Jerome expanded the business.
Their granddaughter, Denise Garza de la Cruz, joined in 1987 and now runs afternoon shifts around her day job teaching pre-K.
A family that’s been frying fair food since before some of this year’s other finalists were born, and they’re still entering new ideas.
The Garzas have already won three Big Tex Choice Awards: Best Taste for Arroz con Leche in 2018, Most Creative for Fla’Mango Tango in 2019, and Most Creative again in 2022 for a horchata milkshake called Cha-Cha Chata.
This year’s flan didn’t add a fourth win. For a family running four booths and three generations deep in Fair history, one more finalist slot barely moves the needle.
Why Texas Keeps Doing This
Everything is bigger in Texas, and apparently that includes a family’s patience for trying to fry the one dessert everybody agrees shouldn’t go near a fryer.
Flan holding together outside a fryer is already an achievement. Getting it through hot oil intact, three generations into a family business that’s already proven it knows what a Fair judge wants, is a different kind of bet entirely.
Sources:
- The State Fair of Texas Announces 2026 Big Tex Choice Awards Finalists, State Fair of Texas
- For the Garzas, the State Fair has been the family business for three generations, Dallas Morning News
- For the Garza family, winning at the State Fair of Texas means shaking it up with the ‘Cha-Cha’, KERA News