Le Petite Sourie - Santa Ana

There's no fancier pastry than macarons, those much sought-after cookie sandwiches that usually cost more money than a thing of that size should ever cost.

Yeah, it's French. And yeah, it's, like, really fashionable right now, much more so than cupcakes, I think.

And the fact that it takes significantly more skill to make a macaron than a cupcake might justify the upcharge some of these places charge.

But me? I'm ambivalent about macarons. I'd much rather get, well...everything else. And there are much more than macarons at Le Petite Sourie, a French bakery in Santa Ana that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

I tried the Black Forest cake, which is densely chocolatey where it should be, fluffy everywhere else. But then there's the meringues--the items that I think they're put on this green Earth to sell.

They're packaged in clear plastic bags, about a half dozen or so in each satchel, and they're wonderful. Shaped like small meteorites, kind of uneven, with rough craters here, smooth surfaces there, you bite into one and discover that the insides are filled with just a touch of filling. Strawberry jam hides underneath the pink ones. There's pistachio (I think) in the greens, and probably mango inside the yellows.

Most importantly, they got the right consistency throughout--a shatteringly crisp outer shell leading to a chewy center. Even better: they're cheaper than the macarons for the same amount of pleasure.

Le Petite Sourie
2801 MacArthur Blvd Ste A
Santa Ana, CA 92704
(714) 966-9969

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