You might remember a few weeks ago, I wrote a post saying that the macaron is the next cupcake craze.
But first, some background. Sometime this past winter, I stopped by the Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warner Center in New York and promptly fell in love with their macarons. I had just finished eating sushi at Whole Foods downstairs and was looking for a tiny dessert treat.
Now, Bouchon is fairly unassuming in appearance. You wouldn’t necessarily think that it supplied the very swanky Per Se upstairs (for a truly great review on Per Se, you should visit the Amateur Gourmet) or that Bouchon’s California parent supplies the French Laundry restaurant. I kind of forgot all that anyways because the macarons and madeleines were not expensive and were really good. They were also really authentically French. Small, crisp on the outside but chewy on the inside, with just the right amount of buttercream sandwiched in the middle.
Over teh months, I worked my way through vanilla, chocolate, pistachio and, as the seasons changed, the more exotic flavors offered in summer. Pomegranate was great. Cherry not so much. Macarons were a familiar treat for me, since I grew up in the French region of Switzerland.
Fast forward to the middle of summer where my husband tells me there’s now a Macaron Cafe open in Midtown. Since it was a Friday and they were closed on weekends, we put it on the list to try in the near future.
And then, the very next day, we go to Joyce’s Bakeshop down the street from our Brooklyn apartment and see this:
Now, as you know from this review, Joyce’s is a place we went to often when we lived in Brooklyn — and they had not had macarons the previous weekend. We would have noticed! Sure enough, we were told this was their debut. The vanilla was lovely, as was the strawberry.
At that point, I didn’t yet think that there was an invasion of macarons coming to New York.
P.S. The macaron per capita also seems to be increasing in its home, Paris. Check out this post. Apparently these beautiful macarons are from a new macaron purveyor.
Picture at top from Bouchon Bakery website. Picture at bottom taken by City Girl.
General Disclosures & Disclaimers
