Tate's Bakeshop and Rocq Cafe

I have been eager to try Tate's Bakeshop cookies and was thrilled to find a discounted gift box plus cookbook through Gilt.com (regularly price at $49.00 through the Tate's website). The gift box came with about 14 cookies each of chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia nut, and oatmeal raisin flavors plus Kathleen King's book Baking for Friends. While the flavors of all three cookies were excellent, they were too crispy for me. Baking for Friends is a fantastic book with lovely pictures and helpful tips plus stories about each recipe. There are so many recipes I want to try, and I will be sure to share them with you when I do.

I had not heard about Rocq Cafe macarons until a deal came through for them on Groupon. Of course when I went I used my Groupon deal ($9 for one dozen), I bought a dozen more since there were so many fun flavors to choose from (lavender, peach mango, red velvet, etc), and they are only $1.60 each. My favorite was the chocolate- deep dark chocolate flavor. Yum! Some of the fruit flavors tasted artificial, but all of the macarons had a great texture and cookie to filling ratio. They are not to the level of the ones I had from Laduree in Paris, but they are a great local substitute. Be sure to eat these on the day you get them. The ones I saved for the next day were dry.