I discovered the new Pierre Herme concession at Selfridges in London.  The beautiful area dedicated to these lovely pastries is both attractive and practical.  Talking to one of the French assistants I learned that these macarons are not macaroons but lovely almond pastries.

These are made in Northern France and shipped to the UK daily if I understood correctly.  Trusting the assistant to select for me, he chose Mogador – a combination of milk chocolate and passion fruit, Rose – a pure rose concoction, and Imagine – green tea and black sesame together.

The rose was the one I tried first.  It didn’t smell of rose but from the first bite it was unmistakable as rose.  Not overpowering or overly floral, the delicately crisp shell of the macaron was beautifully balanced with the rose cream filling.  A different taste sensation but very pleasant.  Not too sweet it was beautifully balanced.  I finished it all up!

Next I tried the milk chocolate and passion fruit.  The passion fruit was the first strong flavour, with the milk chocolate struggling slightly to make an impression on the palette.  This one was also slightly denser, with the filling more solid and dense than the rose. I left it half way through to come back to later.  It was a bit strong for me flavour-wise.

Imagine is the final one I tried.  The strong sesame flavour was quite overwhelming and overpowered the green tea.  The flavour of the green tea does come through at times and is clearly a high quality green tea with none of the bitterness of the lesser types.  Having been to a few green tea ceremonies while in Japan and having learned as much as I could about the ceremony, I found the flavour took me straight back to the mouth feel of the tea after the sweet.  When the black sesame flavour was prominent I found it difficult to eat so left this one unfinished.

I’d recommend them and since these are all about discovering flavours give them all a try.  There is nothing like discovering something new and yummy!

Next I have truffles and macaron chocolates to try from Pierre Herme.

Brownies come in all shapes and flavours.  Some flavours are deep and complex, others false and dry.  The Choc Star van has a double chocolate brownie they insisted I buy and try once I revealed I was reviewing them.

As you can see, this brownie looks normal enough.  It has the requisite crunchy top, slightly broken once cooled.  It is a lovely dark brown colour and it seems lovely and chewy.  Taking a piece you can smell the scent of chocolate.  The middle is a soft inviting chocolate with the edge a lovely crunchy surround.

The flavour is string but the middle is not too grainy, with the mixing of the constituent ingredients thoroughly done.  The baking has been complete, with no uncooked areas in the middle, despite the soft, melting centre.  This makes it a fabulous brownie, delicious but with a limited shelf life.

Never one to turn down an opportunity to eat brownies or cookies, I purchased the Oreo cookie brownie from Outsider tart at the Chocolate Festival.  A large slab of Oreo cookie goodness, I stole home with the prize.

Outsider Tart Oreo Cookie Brownie

This is a hard brownie, offering no soft yielding centre as some do.  Indeed, Oreo cookies are not always soft and yielding unless you get Canadian double stuff (in my opinion).

The brownie had a base of cookie goodness which crumbled deliciously with each bite.  Oreos taste slightly artificial and regrettably this came through but not because of anything with the Outsider Tart manufacture of said brownie but rather Mr Christie’s own failure.  The top was a hard sugary confection with chunks of the centre still visible.

A very different brownie and not what you would expect.  Cut it into squares and serve it to your guests.

A decadent combination of 1.3cm of brownie, 1.5cm of thick caramel and 2mm of chocolate.

One thing about millionaire shortbread is that the cookie base means the caramel squishes out in a big gooey mess.  I love them but this messiness means I don’t enjoy them as often as I would like to.  That and I only like home made fresh ones.

The Choc Star Van trillionaire shortbread is delicious.  The caramel is slightly grainy without the depth of flavour that using a sugar with a higher molasses content would bring but that might have been a bit too much.  The brownie is slightly dry which helps it crumble when you bite in to it but it also seems to have a mouth-feel of desiccated coconut but does not have a coconut taste. This leaves a slightly grainy feeling in the mouth which regrettably detracted from the experience for me.

An almost perfect baked yummy, this was worth the diversion to the Choc Star Van.