Macarons or Macaroons? Either way we can't get enough of them!

With DTLA bake shops like Botegga Louie or West Covina's Paris Baguette boasting scrumptious mini, whoopie pie-esque confections named macarons. Many SoCali-ians find themselves uttering "i thought macaroons had coconut!?!" IKR, me too. 

So as a true foodie, I felt obligated to do a little research & then hit the pavement and discover the difference between a macaron and a macaroon.

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According to wikipedia :

Macaron - "is a sweet meringue-based confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food colouring.^[2] The macaron is commonly filled with ganache, buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. The name is derived from the Italian word maccarone or maccherone."

Macaroon - "is a type of light, baked confection, described as either small cakes or meringue-like cookies depending on their consistency. The original macaroon was a "small sweet cake consisting largely of ground almonds"^[1] similar to Italian amaretti. 

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Sooooo, ones a sandwich and ones a ball & one is french & the other is Italian. Word, got it! 

Now on to the sampling!!

I hit up Frances in lil Tokyo with their classic flavors, Botegga Louie in DTLA with those brilliant colors and flavors, Amy's in Montebello was close to home and a refreshing treat, Soft Peaks @Crafted in San Pedro not really my style but not bad either, Paris Baguette in WesCov was cool, and then there was 'Lette Macarons in Pasadena... sigh...It was like eating Weinerschnitzel after just leaving Pinks, but having to pay the Pinks price for the Weinerschnitzel quality. 

All those places I just hit up sold the french (sandwich) macaron, and quite honestly after all that merignue-y goodness, i could care less about the Italian coconut ball macaroon. 

Evidently, I am on this french macaron bandwagon & I have no intentions of getting off any soon! But hey don't take my word on it. Get out there and do your own taste testing and let me know what you find out.