The First Annual Macaron Challenge

Laduree vs. Pierre Herme - the question of who makes the best macarons in Paris was an issue that needed to be decided. And I used the past tense because NOW it has been determined in a highly scientific manner! I will say that one of the explicit aims of our Paris trip was to determine who was the one we would recommend to others when they headed to Paris. And now, we can say for sure.

Firstly, we had to determine how we were going to test them. We decided the the most important thing in about macarons comes down to 3 aspects - they way they looked (admit it - this is a lot of their appeal), their texture, and their tasted. It was decided that we would try to do this by comparing the classical flavours - chocolate, rose, raspberry, lemon, and pistachio. PH threw a spanner into this when the boutique we visited didn't stock all of those flavours so we eventually picked ones that we hoped would be comparable. In the end it was:

Rose vs. Rose

Citron (lemon) vs. Pamplemousse (grapefruit)

Framboise (raspberry) vs. Cassis (blackcurrant)

Pistachio vs. Creme Brulee

Chocolat vs. Chocolat

It was simple. We had two macarons per flavour, which were carefully dissected into thirds. After eating, we would discuss and debate its merits and determine who received the point for each criterion.  

We got some cremant to wash away the flavour in between testing rounds. 

The lawyers said the scientists had to be the dissectors!

Sharing the segments

The rose looking mighty pretty. Tasted pretty too.

Gosh, look at the perfect appearance and solid texture of the cassis

Who's having a good time testing?!

The results of the Challenge were compelling. Firstly in terms of looks, PH was the runaway winner. While the Laduree shells had the nicer *feet* and bright colours, PH macarons had a lovely glossy and even apparance, and some flavours (notably the chocolate and creme brulee shells had decorative effects. For each individual flavour,

• Rose Battle - Laduree took the points for taste and texture, being a rich flavour bomb. PH's flavouring was more subtle and unfortunately blown away.
• Citrus Battle - The lemon had great tang but the grapefruit actually really tasted like a grapefruit, right down to the sour kick at the end. We were all actually amazed that they somehow managed to replicate that. Taste and texture to PH. 
• Berry Battle - Wow. Readers, if you can get your hands on the cassis, GET YOUR HANDS ON THE CASSIS! The raspberry was actually quite disappointing. One comment was that the ganache seemed like it was actually jam. 
• Nut/Cake Battle - The pistachio was solid, if somewhat unexciting. But upon being sliced into, the creme brulee let out such an amazing aroma and a great replication of the vanilla/custard-y flavour of an actual creme brulee!
• Chocolate Battle - Laduree was the clear winner here with a strong dark chocolate flavour that won us over PH's lighter one. 

And so PH basically blew away Laduree to win the competition but it was no so clear cut! The strength of PH's work is clearly their less orthodox flavours and the  ability to replicate those flavours. Laduree was the clear winner in the more traditional rose and chocolate, but I would say that it is possible that their lemon would have beaten a *lesser* PH flavour except that the grapefruit was so unexpected in actually being a grapefruit. Future visitors might want to take this into consideration when deciding where they should purchase their macarons in the future.

And so after a hard day's science, we sat back and congratulated the winners by eating a *bonus round* and finished the cremant...

...ending on a classy note.