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.

Richart French Macaron Review

So...I saw Richart's chocolates and macaron on sale on another site, which piques my interest.  So I decided to try some.  
Richart sells 15 macarons for $18, included shipping, totaled $33.  Originally, I did not know how big these are, assuming that they would be around the same size of the ones I've reviewed before.  As you can see from the third picture, they are only about the size of a quarter, which is significantly smaller than others.  I wasn't very happy about that.  So I was hoping the overall taste would win me over.  NOPE!  Even the appearances don't look that great, many of them were crushed.  Richart has very creative and interesting flavors, but in this box that I've received, there were several repeated ones.  They tasted alright.  Blood Orange was definitely one of the most unique flavor so far.  But overall, Richart's maracons are not worth it.  


I give it a 4 out of 10.

Merely Sweets Macarons Review

Passed by this store in Downtown Brea many times, but never went in.  So as you can probably tell, it was a bakery, and they have typical bakery items like cakes and pastries.  My friends wanted to try their cupcakes, and I saw that they have macarons.  So I decided to try them.  
The macarons are fairly large, which is usually not a good thing actually.  These ones aren't very impressive.  The meringue cookies did not taste like the usual macaron.  The meringue usually has a nice crust with a tender, chewy inside.  However, Merely Sweets' seemed to be baked too long, it was pretty dry and crunchy on the inside.  The meringue was also too sweet, and the same with the fillings.  I had the coffee and salted caramel flavors, but even the coffee was too sweet.  Overall, too expensive, and not worth the try.  


I give it a 5 out of 10.

My New Guilty Pleasure

I saw this on the menu at Bruxie a while ago, but did not have the chance to try it...until today.  I thought to myself "I am gonna go get myself a soft serve frozen custard at Bruxie!".  Yes, it was totally random, and totally worth it.  
The custard is a little thicker and denser than normal soft serves.  But then again, most soft serve ice cream are not custard base.  Bruxie's soft serve frozen custard is so rich and creamy, and is totally out of this world.  The texture is incredibly creamy and smooth, which a lot of other soft serves you can still taste the ice crystals.  The flavor and aroma is also insanely good.  You get a very strong cream flavor from the soft serve, which tells you that it is most likely very fattening, with very high content of milk fats.  BUT THAT'S GOOD!!!  It also has a very sweet flavor that I can't quite figure out, and very distinct.  Maybe it is the vanilla that they use, or a special sugar.  If you love a rich and delicious frozen dessert, this is the one.  THE ONE.