Have you ever had a macaron? I had never heard of these fancy French cookies until Design Mom wrote about them last year. (It took me a minute to realize they weren’t at all related to macaroons.) Since we’re focusing on France this week, it seemed like a great time to give macarons a try.

After dropping Andrew at baseball camp today, the girls and I headed into St. Paul in search of macarons. (After being reassured that we would bring him a macaron, Will opted to stay home and help Grandpa Jeff repair the garage door trim. The job involved a crowbar, so who could blame him?)

Our search led to Sweets Bakeshop on Marshall Avenue near the University of St. Thomas. When we walked into the small, white-walled, wood-floored store we may have gasped with delight at the rows of macarons lined neatly in the case like colorful jewels. The friendly young woman behind the counter helped us decide on the dozen-for-$17 option which gave us two of each flavor: lemon, vanilla, chocolate, pistachio, salted caramel, and strawberry.

We tucked the macarons into the back of the van so we wouldn’t be tempted to start nibbling. But the minute we arrived home we gathered on the porch and started divvying them up.

Since we’ve never had macarons before I have no real basis for comparison. But I thought these were wonderful—crispy on the outside and melt-in-your-mouth smooth in the middle. We all agreed that lemon was the best (the salted caramel was a close second). The confections were worth the trip, but maybe we’ll try making our own macarons some day.

P.S.: The box is so nice, wouldn’t it make a nice change-of-pace hostess gift?