It seems there’s a food holiday for every type of cuisine under the sun. Heck, even blueberry pancakes have their own special day. That said, tomorrow is National Macaron Day. The French pastries have made quite a name for themselves over the past couple of years, and more and more bakeries in town are offering the dainty treats. For this week’s taste test we tried four different chocolate macarons. They were all unique, but one was unanimously more delicious than the others. Here’s what happened.
The macarons:
A. Whole Foods
B. Chocolate Secrets
C. Kate Weiser
D. Bisous Bisous Patisserie
Tasting notes:
- Very sugary. No chocolate flavor to speak of.
- Great texture. More caramel than chocolate, though.
- Nice creamy filling, nice contrast with the cookie.
- Sugar cookie load, soft and buttery texture. This is the one night stand you didn’t deserve.
- Strong vanilla flavor, gummy center, crisp edge.
- Chocolate doesn’t even come to mind. Buttery and good, but not chocolate.
- Light, sweet flavor. Tastes buttery, almost like toffee. Like a soft little cloud of deliciousness.
- Brownie-like, but light. Delicious!
- Nice, rich chocolate flavor.
- Filling is almost fudge-like, rich chocolate flavor.
- Stronger body, rich chocolate that fades quickly. OK. I think I like but I’ve already forgotten about it.
- Caky middle, crispy.
- Crispy and wafer-y. Best chocolate flavor.
- Darker in color. Wayyyy more of a rich chocolate flavor than A. Not as soft. Almost too extreme of a chocolate kick.
- Dark chocolaty. All the flavor is in the icing.
- Well made macaron, but didn’t taste like anything.
- Has too much of that cocoa powdery flavor.
- Great texture, mild flavor. Chocolate? A delight to mouth touch, but ghostly otherwise.
- Dark chocolate goodness! Mild eggy taste.
- Creamy chocolate in middle.
- Very muddled brown color. Maybe muted brown? Pretty chocolaty like B. The outer shell is very thin, like an M&M shell.
- Chewy. Good flavor.
- Tastes like a brownie.
- Don’t like the chewy consistency, but it’s still tasty.
- Dense and chocolaty. Sexy and full-mouthed. I would eat a lot of these.
- Chewiest and very chocolaty.
- Great fluffy texture. But not as into the chocolate flavor on this one. It’s like grade B chocolate.
- Cliched dirt color. It looks SUPER chocolaty… yep, it is. This is a brownie in a macaron form.
Tally up:
A. Whole Foods 1
B. Chocolate Secrets 5
C. Kate Weiser 0
D. Bisous Bisous Patisserie 1
The winner is:
Chocolate Secrets is the winner of this week’s taste test with five of the seven votes. The Oak Lawn chocolate and pastry shop has macarons in more than 16 different flavors including lavender, green apple, popcorn, tiramisu, raspberry, and lemon.
Have a favorite macaron? Disagree with the outcome? Let us know in the comments below.
