Whole Food's Mochi and French Macaroon Self-Serve Bars Are Out! But Do They Pass the Flavor Test
- Alex and Gus
- Nov 15, 2017
- 4 min read
Left to Right: Pistachio, Raspberry, Hazelnut, Red Velvet
The notorious French macaron. La crème de la crème of French baking. Anyone who bakes will remember the exact moment when they successfully created a perfect macaron with prominent feet, a sturdy filling, and well-risen cookie. These delicious little devils are incredibly hard to master, which makes for a sad day when you're craving the elegance of these petite monsters since it will either become a several-hour long endeavor of you trying to make them or a pricey shopping trip at any local bakery who may sell them. But! The glorious, nation-wide organic grocery store known as Whole Foods has created their own self-serve French macaron bar at quite the reasonable price, c'est la joie de vivre! They also have a self-serve bar for Japanese mochi ice cream, which we'll be reviewing in the second half of this article.
The price at our local Whole Foods for these were $2 each, which isn't a bad price since these were larger than other macarons we've seen. We decided to try out five flavors:
We couldn't resist being a little extra with these neapolitan macarons
Neapolitan: These looked absolutely gorgeous, so it was a 10/10 for overall appearance. The top cookie was chocolate, the bottom was vanilla, and the filling was strawberry. These were the first macarons we tried, so we had high hopes for all the flavors to come through. While these tasted quite nice, none of the quintessential neapolitan flavors came through. It had a pleasant, sweet almond flavor.
Hazelnut: This had a beautiful, creamy coloring, a golden filling inside, and was dusted with delicate hazelnut crumbs. The flavor of hazelnut actually came through in this one, and it wasn't an overpowering flavoring. The texture of this was one of the nicest, with a slightly chewy consistency that we enjoyed.
Red Velvet: This one was AMAZING! First of all, it looked like the perfect macaron. The feet at the bottom of the cookies were noticeably prominent and the filling was just a hair smaller in diameter than the cookies, which looked aesthetically pleasing. The flavor was great, it tasted mostly like the cream cheese filling (which wasn't too sweet), but the cocoa came through from the light dusting on top. C'est très délicieux!
Pistachio: We're just going to be frank and let you all know we didn't like this one. It looked pretty (which is quite an important factor in our eyes) but the taste wasn't good. At all. Like, Gus didn't even want to finish the bite he took. It tasted like perfume. We honestly couldn't detect a pistachio flavor at all. Since everything else was great, it's possible we might've gotten a bad batch. Don't let this stop you from trying it if you want, but just keep this in the back of your mind.
Raspberry: This one was pretty, true to flavor, and probably the best one out of what we got. The feet were beautiful on this cookie and the color was was vibrant and stunning. The texture was perfect, it all but melted in your mouth. The flavor of this was the most apparent, with a strong fruity flavor that was a nice change from all the other subtle flavors. Definitely try this one out!
All of our combined will-power was needed to not eat these during the picture-taking portion
All in all, Whole Food's French macaron bars are amazing and a great way to have the elegant macaron seem more accessible to everyone! Every macaron looked gorgeous and it's just a fun treat to be able to hand pick all the little cookies you want!
La vie est trop courte pour manger du mauvais macaron. Take advantage of this!
More extra AF photos of these delicious monsters
Whole Food's Mochi Ice Cream Bar
Our mochi ice cream stacked and ready to packed (into our mouths) :)
We also stopped by the mochi ice cream bar, which is almost always a go-to for us. We've had mochi before (usually the frozen kind you can buy at Asian markets or Trader Joe's) but these are our favorites. Mochi ice cream is consists of mochi (made up of sweet rice flour and water) wrapped around any kind of ice cream! The mochi is soft to the touch and pleasantly chewy, and I'm obsessed with how well it pairs with ice cream. You can eat them straight out of the freezer because the mochi itself never seems to completely freeze.
You can buy these for $1.50 each, so we decided to try out six different flavors- Kona coffee, pistachio, red bean, matcha green tea, pineapple-coconut, and strawberry.
We literally cannot tell you enough how much we loved these. It's just so cool how well they mix traditional flavors, like red adzuki bean and green tea, with funky flavors like Kona coffee and pineapple coconut. Like, we love these so much that we were eating them outside in 30° weather. We just couldn't wait. But that's just us. A more normal person with self-control would enjoy these indoors so they could truly appreciate how soft and flavorful each one is. I'm not doing a one-by-one review because honestly, each of these flavors are true to flavor, with A LOT of flavor.
Just do yourself a favor and go try these. Even if you're not into crazy, exotic flavors, they have classics like vanilla and chocolate.
So, with all that said, thank you for stopping by and bon appétit!
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