Le Macaron in Winter Park, FL

Macarons, not to be confused with macaroons, are a type of French cookies that were completely new to me. I always knew macaroons as those coconut cookies that seem to cross all cultural boundaries, found everywhere from Kosher food stores to Vietnamese markets to Latin-American markets. It seems like the whole world loves those little mounds of coconut, so when I first heard about French macarons from Droolius at a Foodspotting dinner, I assumed these were the same type of cookie. Apparently the difference is more than one less 'o' in the name...

 A couple months later I visited Le Macaron in downtown Winter Park to finally try a French macaron. Le Macaron is a little shop tucked away in an alley off Park Avenue. Macarons are the main focus of this shop, but they also had a very limited selection of chocolates for sale as well. There was a gelato case too, but it was empty on the day I visited.

At $1.80 each the macarons were a bit expensive for the small size of the pastry. Regardless, I got a box of six macarons. Picking out the flavors got a little weird though when the grumpy employee helping us interrupted filling our box to offer her friend that had walked in after us a free sample of a macaron. Besides being a little sour that we didn't get offered any free cookies, our macarons were soon taken home to be tasted.

I tried several flavors and the Pistachio, Basil & White Chocolate, and Raspberry macarons were my favorites. The cookies had a crispy outer shell surrounding a gooey inside that almost reminded me of marzipan. These were definitely some tasty little cookies and were not that macaroons that I've known. With all the different flavors that were offered, I really wanted to try more but $1.80 per cookie is a bit pricy to go crazy. Perhaps another visit is eventually necessary...

If you haven't tried a macaron, definitely pay this place a visit. They're desserts that most people seem oblivious to. Because of that, you must try these expensive little cookies...