Macaron are a French delicacy, a meringue-based dessert, and are often accompanied with coffee or a pastry. They are a sweet, creamy and made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or found almond and food coloring and topped off with ganache, buttercream or jam filling based on the flavor.
(Photo via Pinterest)
They are delicious and create a melt-in-your-mouth creamy sensation. macaroon come in many different flavors, ranging from the classic vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and almond to the more obscure like the popular candied bacon with maple cream cheese, or the Cheetos macaron from Macaron Parlour. The common flavors in alphabetical order are almond, blueberry, caramel, chocolate, coconut, honey, lemon, orange, peppercorn, pistachio, rose and vanilla.
Upon my arrival to New York I ventured out to the notable macaron stores, such as Macaron Café and Ladurée to test out the various flavors for myself and come up with a ranking of each one. Here they are:
1. Toffee at Ladurée
Toffee is composed of almond flavors and a toffee buttercream filling. It is creamy, delicious, sweeter and more complex than the classic caramel macaron. The hints of almond and hazelnut make it a sophisticated and delightful blend of flavors. The butterscotch, creamy filling make it especially mouthwatering and pulls it all together into a number one, must-have macaron. It's tasteful and will satisfy any sweet tooth or hankering for the perfect macaron.
(Photo via Ladurée)
2. Caramel "Fleur de Sel" at Ladurée
A classic caramel "fleur de sel" is one of the most popular flavors and definitely a top macaron choice. It boasts a salted caramel and buttercream flavoring, which make it one of the creamier, sweeter flavors of a macaron. The most amazing part of a caramel "fleur de del" macaron is the filling which is a melt-in-your-mouth, creamy butterscotch. It is a definite hit and the creamiest filling for a macaron I have tasted yet. It is definitely a flavor I will keep going back to for more.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
3. Party Time at Macaron Café
The Party Time macaron is composed of salted milk chocolate and dulce de leche. The dulce de leche component makes the macaron creamier than most and gives it multiple flavoring of chocolate, without it being too overbearing. The salted milk chocolate makes it dimensional, with hints of caramel and toffee mixed into every bite. It is the perfect macaron without being too sweet or too chocolate-y and like a toned-down version of the toffee macaron. It is well-blended, very savory, and will not disappoint any macaron connoisseur.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
4. Pistachio at Ladurée
This flavor is a classic and a great choice if sweet, savory macarons are not for you. This flavor is rich with a pistachio shell and a white chocolate ganache filling. It is less sweet and more natural and earthy tasting with hints of almond. It is definitely a good choice with the morning coffee if you don't want a flavor that is too sugary or too sweet. Its complex flavors make it a must-try delight.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
5. Marie Antoinette at Ladurée
Its flavors consist of Chinese black tea, rose petals, citrus fruits and honey. It is sweet without being too sweet and is a perfect mix between a macaron that is earthy like Earl Grey and sweet like rose. It is the perfect afternoon snack, however I am not a huge fan of the earthy flavors of black tea that take away from it truely being creamy and delicious.
(Photo via
Luxuo.com)
7. Giggity at Macaron Café
Giggity is full of flavor, such as chocolate ganache, peanut butter, marshmallow creme, dulce de leche, and salted peanuts. This flavor ranked lower than the rest because I found the flavors of peanut butter to be too overwhelming with the rest. The flavors did not quite mesh together in the right way, and instead I found the peanut butter flavor too contrasting against the others. Although peanut butter is creamy and delicious in its original form, I did not find it as satisfying in a macaron.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
8. Lemon at Macaron Café
The lemon macaron is composed of sweet and tart lemon and buttercream, which give it a refreshing and tart taste. It was good but not great, and it certainly did not compare to the other delicious flavors of macarons. This is a good choice if the craving hits for a tart but sweet delectable after dinner, but I would not choose it over the other great flavors of macarons. I found it mediocre overall, with the buttercream a bit too underwhelming.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
9. Rose Petal at Ladurée
This flavor is also one of the more popular ones, but after getting it again it tasted a little too floral-y and a bit like soap. It is a rosewater flavor with white chocolate ganache, but the floral flavor of the rose was a little too overbearing and threw me off from truly enjoying it. The white chocolate ganache was too subtle and though it was creamy and delicious, I would much prefer a different macaron flavor. To me, floral don't quite have that same creamy, buttery taste that the other classic flavors do and with all the other magnificient flavors, I can do without a floral one.
(Photo via Ladurée)
10. Hazelnut at Macaron Café
I definitely did not like hazelnut as much as I expected to. The hazelnut shell with hazelnut and semisweet chocolate ganache was very uniform in taste and quite frankly boring to eat. The flavors meshed together into one overpowering uniform flavor of chocolate. There was no mix or hint of other flavors, which made it taste plain and unoriginal. Even if you consider yourself a chocolate lover I would definitely skip this flavor and choose one that is a little more refined.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
11. Earl Grey at Macaron Cafe
I much prefer Earl Grey in the tea form than as a macaron. The flavors are milk chocolate ganache that is infused with Earl Grey tea. I found the flavor of Earl Grey tea to be too flavorful and earthy for a macaron cookie. I would prefer it if it were a little more subtle and creamier. The Earl Grey is just too stark for a macaron.
(Photo via Macaron Parlour)
12. Raspberry at Ladureé
I don't know why anyone thought it would be a good idea to substitute a creamy filling for jam, but it was done with the raspberry macaron. It is one of the simplest tasting and easiest macarons to make and not very fun to eat. It is essentially just the basic flavors with red food coloring and seedless raspberry jam as the filling. It was very overrated and tasted too much like jam than an actual macaron cookie. I would definitely not recommend it.
(Photo via Redblackapron.tumblr)
Here is my ranking of macarons. Do you agree? Do you have others you would add to the list? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
