5. Haute Couture Macarons ($7,414)
Macarons are small round meringue cookies from France. They are usually filled with butter cream, jam, or ganache.
Macarons were introduced by Chef Catherine de Medicis in 1533. They become famous when two Carmelite nuns baked and sold them to pay their housing. At that time, macarons were sold without special flavors or fillings. It was not until 1830s that macarons began to be served two-by-two with the addition of jams, liqueurs, and spices.
In 2003, Parisian pastry chef and the owner of 13 pastry shops in Paris and Tokyo, Pierre Herme, started to make collections of macarons that followed seasons, just like fashion. Every year since then, he creates two collections of macarons and people from all over the world would come to his shop. Sometimes they had to stand in line to buy a box of his assorted macarons which is sold at $5 per cookie or $100 per pound.
But one pound of Herme’s special macarons could cost you up to $7,414. And they are the most wanted, most coveted, and most popular in France. Among them are Arabesque, a Pistachio macaron with apricot filling, and Rose, pink macaron with rose petal ganache.
