Trade Jacques Macarons, New Packaging, New Flavors

 Sorry for the quality of the pictures...

Yes, I know, I shop at Trade Joe's a lot.  What can I do?  It is 3 minutes away from my house.  Every body chill.  
I reviewed their macarons last time.  But they came out with a new packaging, with three new flavors: coconut, figs and apricot.  I am not a big fan of coconuts, so I am going to skip that and feed it to my dog (Just Kidding!!!).  Reviewed so many macarons, apricot and figs are definitely the most unusual flavors so far.  The apricot one has a gooey, gelatinous center, with a subtle yet distinct apricot flavor.  And as a good macaron should have, a thin and crisp outer crust but soft and slightly chewy inside.  Very very delicious. 
Figs macaron, on the other hand, definitely figgy.  Although, figs itself do not have a very strong and distinct aroma.  There are edible figs seeds in the fillings, which is a very nice touch.  But overall, it is overly sweet.  Overwhelming sweetness made me not wanting another.  Oh well...
Last time, the salted caramel was a disappointment.  This time, Trader Joe's has redeemed itself.  The salted caramel is very salted caramel.  The rich caramel with the slight salty flavor together with the delicious shell, very satisfied.  The pistachio macaron is also better.  Instead of the very artificial flavor like pistachio flavors tend to have, this time, the flavor is nice and rich, but very natural.  You can taste the delicious roasted pistachio flavor and the nuttiness.  


I give it a 8 out of 10.

Layer Cakes Bakery Macaron review

Layer Cakes Bakery is located in Fullerton, CA.  I stumbled upon it recently.  I went inside just to take a look, and I saw them selling French Macarons, so I have to try them.  I picked four flavors: Passionfruit, Hazelnut, Salted Caramel and Coffee.  Unfortunately, I ate the passionfruit one right after I walked out of the bakery, so it was not in the picture.  The passionfruit macaron had purple cookie shells, which intrigued me, with yellow fillings.  The purple shell seemed to taste like taro to me, and the filling inside had the tartness of passionfruit.  Flavor-wise it worked well.  The texture, however, could use some improvement.  When bit into the middle, the cookies were too chewy and hard, which was not very enjoyable.  The other ones that I've reviewed on this blog, had crumbly thin crusts on the outside and soft and slightly chewy on the inside, even in the almost frozen state.  The other ones were all the same.  

The flavors for Hazelnut, Salted Caramel and Coffee were also not very strong.  I tasted the saltiness of the salted caramel, but could not really differentiate the rest, even the coffee one.  And I actually rinsed my mouth with water in between each flavor, but still did not get much.  

Each macaron sells for $1.60 each, average price. 

I give it a 6.5 out of 10.