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We try 7-Eleven Japan’s latest fancy desserts: ice cream macarons【Taste test】

Richard Simmonds Jun 21, 2018
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Meringue meets ice cream in convenience store chain’s latest summer-themed dessert offering.

While the temperature and humidity is still bearable, at least here in Kansai, summer is coming. While frantically fanning yourself and putting a bag of frozen edamame beans down your T-shirt are both excellent ways to try to beat the heat, cold drinks and ice creams are a rather more enjoyable way to fight off the high temperatures. To that end we decided it was high time to sample the luxurious new macaron ice creams available from 7-Eleven. It’s practically a public service announcement.

The new macaron ices, as they’re officially known, come in two different flavours, chocolate mint and mixed berry, each sandwiched in the crisp, sugary meringue goodness of two differently coloured macarons for desserts that hopefully taste as good as they look.

▼ Chocolat, because it tastes fancier when you spell it the French way.

With Herculean effort we were able to artfully place the first of the two ice creams on a plate to take a photo before snaffling it down, in the interests of a proper food review, you understand. Our first impression when we opened the cool-green packaging was the refreshing smell of mint that poured out. Our appetites were well and truly whetted.

The mint-flavoured ice cream is capped by a vivid blue mint macaron on one side, and a rich brown chocolate macaron on the other. Despite the notorious fragility of meringue-based macarons ours seemed to have survived their frozen journey intact. As for the taste, the mint of the ice cream was cool but not overpowering and the macarons were sweet yet thanks to the ice cream not sickly.

Next up was the Mix Berry and its gaudy pink and purple macarons. Again, opening the packet released a strong summery fragrance, this time of berries. The pink macaron was strawberry-flavoured and the purple one tasted of blueberries, while the ice cream is also strawberry for a full berry blast. The slight citric tang of the berry flavour and the creaminess of the strawberry ice cream complement the macarons nicely without being too much. The two elements also add to the sated feeling you get from eating just one of them, not too bad when they come in at a not-unreasonable 153 calories each.

Seven Eleven clearly have an eye on capturing the taste buds and shutter clicks of the Instagram generation, as these sweets definitely have photogenic good looks, seemingly designed to grace a fair number of profile and background pictures across social media, with the delicious mix of sweet macaron and creamy ice cream.

Convenience stores in other countries might not be known for their quality or taste, with a stereotype of convenience that makes up for other shortcomings, but here in Japan a trip to a convenience store and a look at the limited-edition goodies on sale will soon have you reconsidering that, with delicious offerings from all of the main chains.

On the packaging the words FROZEN TREATS apparently warrant capitalisation, and they’re not wrong, they are both frozen and a treat that satisfies both our sweet tooths and our dislike of overheating. The new ice cream treats went on sale on 12 June and sell for 248 yen (US$2.30) each including tax and are our latest weapon in the fight to keep cool, and happy. Also, if you need more tips to survive the four-month long heatwave that is Japanese summer you’re in the right place.

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