Macaroons: The New Trend in Sweets

While strolling the streets of uptown New Orleans' Garden District this holiday weekend, we came across a newly discovered marvel. Sucré.

From breakfast to a midnight snack, Sucré is available to satisfy your sweet tooth. Sucré (French for sugared) is an emporium of "artisan" sweets. Unlike a traditional bakery, Sucré serves plated desserts with custom garnishes in addition to boxed treats. Their french macaroons have been featured in O Magazine and their desserts in Paula Deen's Best Desserts!

Now Sucré serves artisan style breakfasts, sandwiches for lunch on fresh baked croissant, and features an assortment of gelato, sorbet, chocolates, nuts, even one-of-a-kind wedding cakes, but I want to focus on their macaroons for this piece. Each Parisian macaroon features two delicate cookies filled with luscious cream or rich mouselline. They also offer a chocolate covered macaroon filled with milk chocolate caramel ganache, coated in dark chocolate and topped with gold leaf. These confections are hitting it big here in New Orleans, and my sources in the big cities nationally say the same thing ...

"The macaroon is fast replacing the cupcake as the sweet du jour!"

Visit Sucré in New Orleans at 3025 Magazine Street, or view their online presence here. Their website features all the glorious treats to be found and you can also watch a video of the team making their famous macaroons. Boxes range in size and retail from $12 - $20.

The Simple Pleasures of Talenti Sorbetto e Gelato

Sometimes there's just nothing more beautiful than a dish of divine italian confection. With the hot weather approaching, and for some of us - oh, it's here already, I thought I'd tempt you with this exquisite frozen delicious-ness.

Making everything from scratch with unparalleled artisanship, Talenti Gelato e Sorbetto has a 500 year tradition of creating their handcrafted gelato and sorbetto. They combine the impeccably chosen ingredients by hand in small batches and add their innovative spirit and passion in order to provide their customers with a myriad of enchanting flavors from which to choose.

Talenti incorporates the finest ingredients available by importing raw materials from around the world to enhance our recipes. Talenti gelato uses only freshly pasteurized milk which is free of the growth hormones rBGH and rBST. They use only extra fine pure sugar, fresh fruit and nuts straight from the growers, real Callebaut chocolate from Belgium, fresh whole Tahitian vanilla beans from Papua New Guinea, select coconuts from the Philippines, and dulce de leche from Argentina. Additionally, they roast and caramelize their own nuts, squeeze their own lemons, and they make their own nut pastes. No detail is ignored and no shortcuts are taken. Talenti truly is made with only the best.

With flavors like Sicilian Pistachio, Tahitian Vanilla Bean, Double Dark Chocolate, Malaysian Mango, Hill County Peach Champagne, Lisbon Lemon and many more, it's truly no surprise these are as luscious as they sound. One more reason to love it - Talenti gelatos and sorbettos have 30% to 100% less fat than traditional ice cream!

You can find them at most Whole Foods Markets or alternately check them out at their online website, Talenti.