Macarons… in McDonald’s?!

Last weekend I was working in a very cold Brussels – the temperature didn’t seem to reach above freezing the whole time we were there. More than a little tired (think, 12 hour days, 3 hour plane delays…), a colleague and I set out for dinner, only to stumble across McDonald’s advertising macarons in their window.

Now, we are both big macaron lovers and were very easily sucked into the idea of a quick and easy dinner – there was no other way to it!

Consulting the menu we obviously had to try one of every kind each, but at 3 Euros for 4, fantastic value for macarons.

The four flavours were chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, and pistachio. The latter slightly unusual for the mass market maybe? But oh how European!

Packaging was a big let down – a paper bag! If McDonald’s can put their burgers in boxes I’m sure they could manage it for macarons as well, they are supposed to be a delicacy…

So how did they taste? Well, rather good actually! The vanilla had a thick sweet cream in the middle – perhaps a little too much so?

And the chocolate, a thick ganache filling. Having sunk into the macaron shell a fair amount this was really more like a round, fudgy brownie (albeit it a tasty one), than a delicate macaron:

I’d had enough of photo and wanted to concentrate on eating – but the raspberry was filled more with jam than buttercream, and the pistachio was my surprise favourite, a lovely delicate flavour throughout.

Overall – a tasty trip, and lovely little desserts for the price. However, and somewhat understandably for a mass and fast food market, not quite what you’d expect from normal macarons. They were quite a bit heavier, denser fillings, and sadly lacking in the crunchy-chewy shell that macarons normally have.

Would I have more? Well, if the temperature is still in the minus figures when we return in a month, then I’ll have to substitute my usual McFlurry for something else sweet – and these are certainly not a bad compromise!

We also managed a little sight-seeing of our evening:

Stunning architecture in the main square, the Grand Place:

Tintin fire escape mural – genius! Did you know he was Belgian?

And of course we visited some of the famed chocolate shops. There are a lot of replicas around of Brussels’ famous statue, Manneken Pis (the weeing boy, yes really!). We saw the actual fountain itself, but these were my favourites – with chocolates to match!