Despite what this blog may suggest, my favourite thing in the entire food world is a French macaron. I could eat these all day, every day and never ever get sick of them. Annoyingly, vegan versions are very hard to come across but when I find any, I will push a queue out of the way in order to get to them. Ok maybe a bit dramatic because I am actually a very mild mannered British lady, but I think macarons could easily bring out the worst in me.
Laduree is clearly the best of the best when it comes to macarons. Whilst they do have stores spread out across the world, there aren’t any that are close to me, so I really do not have macarons often. However, the other week my partner and I decided to have a stroll around London and explore some of the areas that we do not tend to visit, which includes Covent Garden. If you are visiting London, Covent Garden is a lovely place to visit and there are some wonderful eateries in the surrounding area to give a try. But it is also quite posh, with all of the shops being very high end. It is probably why there is a Laduree here. But we walked past the shop and I knew I could not leave without seeing if they have a vegan option.
Annoyingly, Laduree is very slow on the vegan uptake. I have only ever had two vegan flavours from here, and this post is the second flavour. The first was this vegan hazelnut macaron which whilst very yummy, is definitely not very imaginative a flavour. Whilst it could be argued that chocolate and raspberry is also not overly creative, I think it is one of the better flavour combinations and is always a solid winner. So I tried it.
Macarons just touch my soul. The actual macaron was raspberry flavoured, with that soft, chewy macaron texture that has a slight crunch on the outside and the super soft interior and it really did seem to melt in my mouth. The raspberry middle was similar to a jelly, and was delicious and added a lovely sweetness. But the whole macaron was literally dipped in dark chocolate. The layer of chocolate was very thin though, tot he point that it as melting in my fingers, but that thin layer meant that it crunched beautifully when I bit in, meaning that I had a double crunch with the chocolate and the macaron shell. The chocolate was dark so it did have that very subtle bitterness to it, but the layer was so thin that it didn’t really have any impact on the flavour. The outside also had a light dusting of raspberry flakes which added a very sharp taste. It didn’t last – it was more of a very initial taste before the macaron itself – and was a nice little extra flavour to enjoy.
This was a very delicious little macaron. It cost ÂŁ2.95 which I guess works out in reality to about ÂŁ1 per bite, and that is the price of all of the macarons regardless of whether or not it is vegan. The downside though is that this was literally the only vegan option they had. Which is a shame when they had about 15 non-vegan flavours on display that looked like they could be very delicious and also easily made to be vegan friendly. I feel in this day and age, having only one vegan option is not good enough, and so whilst the macaron was absolutely delicious, I won’t be rushing back to Laduree just for their one offering. Perhaps if they finally did expand their vegan range to have more than one flavour – I think about 5 would be reasonable to begin with and to get me excited at least – then I would be more likely to return, but for now Laduree will remain a very rare treat that I have as and when I pass a shop, which is maybe once a year if that.
Taylor Talks Vegan 