Educating Ourselves on Macarons - CLOSED

Merely Sweets

260 W. Birch

Brea, CA 92821

We have done some firsts around Eating My Way Through OC lately. We recently did our first review in the city of Brea. Now, this will be our first full-on bakery review, which happens to be in Brea. Crazy how that works!

My family has recently been introduced to macarons. To be honest, I had never had one until a few weeks ago. I had read about them on other people's blogs but had yet to try them. I really did not understand the hype surrounding them. I was still trying to distinguish between macarons and macaroons. I think I got that part down now. Macaroons with an extra "o" are the coconut-based cookies we grew up with. These are found on shelves in your local supermarket. Macarons are sandwich-like cookies in various flavors and colors, filling inside.

After going out to lunch, I went to Merely Sweets with my Mom. She was raving about these macarons, so I was excited to try them. Merely Sweets is a small bakery in the downtown district of Brea. This area has been cleaned up since the last time I was here. Lots of stores and restaurants all over the place. Merely Sweets is a very clean/sterile bakery. White is definitely the dominant trait here. All baking is done in the back, away from prying eyes. Let's see what they have in store for us.

Merely Sweets has a small space, so only four glass cases are full of baked goods. When we were here, they featured about six different cupcakes, some tarts, a few varieties of cookies, and some buttery-looking palmiers that I will have to try on future visits. For now, though, I was focused on macarons.

The first lesson that I learned about macarons is that these little suckers are a little pricey. $1.65 apiece, or $18.50 for a dozen, which brings them down to about $1.54 each. Merely Sweets had 10 different flavors the day we were here. Some of the more interesting-sounding ones were Gingerbread, Earl Grey, and Vanilla Bean. My Mom did not want to mess around with any of these flavors. She already knew what flavors she wanted. So we picked up a dozen and headed home to disperse them among the family.

My favorite macaron of the day was this Salted Caramel version. I have been on a real salted caramel kick lately. The two flavors work so well together that it is frightening. When I first bit into the macarons, I was surprised at how soft they were. They melted away in my mouth. The flavor was dead on what it was supposed to be: salted caramel. These were also richer than I imagined they would be.

In my family, there is great debate over which of these two macarons is better: the salted caramel or the Peanut Butter and Jelly. I liked this one, but I give the edge to the salted caramel. This one reminded me of being a kid. The PB&J was right on. Again, the outer shell dissolved right after the initial crunch, leaving the taste buds to savor the peanut butter and jelly. It was a very close second to the salted caramel.

The Hazelnut Chocolate did not reach the critical acclaim that the other two macarons did. They were good, but the hazelnut flavor did not shine through. Got more chocolate here.

Cake Pops are also all the rage right now. My nieces each had one. These are definitely different from Tootsie Roll Pops; it only takes three bites to finish them. Five-year-old Lillie said, "This is the best cake pop I have had!" That is a bold statement for a five-year-old who has had her fair share of cake pops in her half-decade.

Merely Sweets was a great place to be introduced to macarons. They were a lot better than I had imagined. These will be the macarons that I judge all others by. I am also happy that I finally learned the difference between macarons and macaroons.

Out of five Big Macs (because macarons are so popular in France that even McDonald's sells them), five being best to zero being worst, Merely Sweets gets 3 Big Macs.

For more information on Merely Sweets, click here: http://www.merelysweets.com/