A hearty gluten-free loaf made for bread lovers (made in a gluten-friendly environment) 

At Macrina, in particular over the last decade, we’ve been baking with more and more heritage grains. We’re fortunate to have a close relationship with the renowned Bread Lab and Cairnspring Mills, both located nearby in the Skagit Valley. The quality, flavor and nutrition of the heritage grains they make available, many grown in-state, has led to thrilling possibilities. 

One goal has been to make a gluten-free loaf that celebrates different grains without compromising on flavor or texture. Leslie Mackie, Macrina’s founder, has spent months experimenting in our test kitchen to develop a loaf that rises to her standards. The result is our Ancient Grain Loaf. “This is unlike any other gluten-free loaf I’ve tasted,” says Leslie. “It's highly nutritious, packed with fiber, minerals, and vitamins, and its excellent flavor makes it ideal for open-faced sandwiches or toast.” 

Teff and millet, two ancient grains naturally free of gluten, add flavor and texture. Brown rice flour and finely-ground oats round out the grains, to which we add organic flax and chia seeds, olive oil and honey for enhanced flavor and richness. A long, slow fermentation process allows the bread to develop a semi-dense texture while retaining plenty of moisture. The bread has a subtly nutty flavor with a hint of honey sweetness.  At room temperature, the bread has a shelf life of two days, but refrigerated it will stay fresh up to a week.

In honor of Pi Day, Macrina will offer individually sized mini pies in four favorite flavors for an entire week beginning on March 11 

Pi Day is an annual celebration of the famed mathematical constant, Albert Einstein’s birthday, and edible homonyms (aka tasty round things) — which is why we choose to celebrate it with a week-long celebration of pie. From March 11 to March 17, we’ll be offering individually sized mini pies in four favorite flavors at all our cafés. Last year, we sold out quickly, so don’t dilly dally. Here they are: 

• Coconut Cream Tart
• Chocolate Banana Cream Tart
• Mini Very Berry Pie
• Mini Maple Apple Pie 

For those of you looking to share, we’ll also have the Very Berry and Maple Apple as 9-inch pies. Whether you love math or love to hate it, come celebrate your love of pie at Macrina.

Macrina Bakery makes some of Seattle's best cakes– order one now for your Mother's Day celebration.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake is one of our favorite seasonal cakes available just in time for Mother's Day! Old-fashioned devil’s food cake (the base of our famous Mom's Cake) is layered with chocolate mousse and fresh raspberries, then finished with chocolate ganache and chocolate cake crumbs.We’ve always made cakes at Macrina, but a few years ago we started offering a rotating slice of the day in cafés (only available Friday - Sunday). Customers were so thrilled, our talented pastry team had to ramp up production! See the dates below for some upcoming slices.

Drop by and pick up treats for Mother’s Day. We have complimentary Mother’s Day Cards to make your treat extra sweet! Whole cakes must be ordered by noon 2 days in advance.

Beyond the Chocolate Raspberry Cake, We have a number of impossibly delicious cakes!

Lemon Poppy Seed CakeOur popular white chocolate cake is layered with lemon curd, whipped cream, fresh raspberries and raspberry preserves. Finished with white chocolate cream cheese icing.Available until 5/11. 

      Carrot CakeAn old-fashioned favorite made with fresh carrots and toasted walnuts, filled and frosted with white chocolate cream cheese icing and sprinkled with orange zest between layers. Finished with toasted walnuts and candied carrot peel.Slices available in cafés 4/29-5/1.    Tuxedo CakeBittersweet chocolate cake moistened with brandy syrup with alternating layers of ganache and white chocolate cream cheese filling. Frosted with white chocolate cream cheese icing and topped with white chocolate curls.Slices available in cafés 5/13-5/15.     

Mom's Cake is one of our most popular cakes. The rich, devil’s food cake is a child’s dream of the perfect cake—only designed for your grown-up taste buds. We layer the light and feathery cake with bittersweet chocolate buttercream and top it with big swirls of the velvety frosting.Slices available in cafés 5/20-5/22.

     

Red Velvet CakeOur version of red velvet cake has a dark red color to match the rich Valrhona chocolate flavor layered with cream cheese buttercream.Slices available in cafés 6/3-6/5

      Whisper CakeOur popular white chocolate cake is layered with lemon curd, whipped cream, fresh raspberries and raspberry preserves. Finished with white chocolate cream cheese icing.      

Lemon Butter CakeFresh lemon butter cake layered with lemon curd lightened with whipped cream, fresh strawberries and strawberry preserves. Frosted with lemon cream cheese icing and dusted on the sides with crumbled walnut biscotti.

Looking for Gluten-Free Options?

Our new Queen's Cake is a rich, gluten-free* espresso-infused chocolate almond torte with a creamy center. Topped with ganache, chopped almonds, chocolate pearls and fresh berries. Contains rum. Available until 5/11. Torta GiandujaGluten-free* rectangular torta with six alternating layers of chocolate espresso cake and chocolate hazelnut cake. Glazed with rich, bittersweet chocolate ganache and decorated with hazelnuts. Contains alcohol. Bittersweet Chocolate GateauVelvety, gluten-free* chocolate cake swirled with raspberry preserves, glazed with bittersweet chocolate ganache and dusted with powdered sugar.*Made with gluten-free ingredients but produced in a gluten-friendly environment.

By Matt GalvinCertain beloved foods trigger memories, transporting us through time and space to a special moment. For me, one of those foods is a mortadella and fresh mozzarella sandwich on focaccia. Like so much Italian food, its beauty lies in quality ingredients and simplicity. The freshly baked focaccia must be golden brown, flavorful and tender with a toothy crust, the mortadella thinly sliced and artfully layered and the fresh mozzarella creamy.My first taste of this sandwich was in Florence during a college semester abroad. The bakery had a wood-burning oven, and the baker would brush the dough with olive oil and saltwater. With a long flat peel, he’d place the floury dough into the oven, and about 20 minutes later a golden slab of steaming focaccia about four feet long would emerge from the oven. A piece of that savory bread layered with mortadella, fresh mozzarella, was, and still is, a perfect sandwich.After college, I returned to Italy to teach history and got to know the specialties of different regions. Still, for a quick lunch, nothing surpassed my favorite Florentine sandwich, except maybe a version I had in Rome at the famed bakery Antico Forno Roscioli.Years later, on return visits to Rome, I always headed to Antico Forno Roscioli for my favorite sandwich. I’d take it to Piazza Navona and find a spot to perch amid the fountains and take in the scene, a sentimental visit that always brought similar memories of times past flooding into the present.This year, my daughter, Gracie, is spending a semester abroad in Florence. Recently, my wife, Michelle, and I visited her and took her to Rome for a weekend. Guess where we grabbed lunch? En route to Antico Forno Roscioli, we wandered through Campo di Fiori. Then with sandwiches in hand, we strolled over to Piazza Navona. Sitting there, I discovered something better than enjoying your favorite sandwich in a perfect setting—watching your daughter do the same thing for the first time!Some might say, location, location, location, and they’re not wrong—go if you can. In the meanwhile, enjoy Macrina’s version of my favorite sandwich. It’s served on an Italian-style golden brown focaccia, made fresh every morning and topped with a light sprinkle of rosemary and cherry tomatoes, layered with thinly sliced mortadella and creamy fresh mozzarella. If you close your eyes and use your imagination, the patter of rain outside might just be the fountain splash of Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. 

Perhaps no pastry requires more napkins or inspires cravings more than homemade pecan sticky buns. They’re warm, gooey and soft in all the right places—and absolutely delicious.

After years of customer requests, we’re launching our own based on Leslie’s recipe for her homemade brunch favorite. We make them by layering our slightly sweet and pillowy brioche dough with toasted pecans and cinnamon sugar, tightly rolling it, then baking it upside down on a rich brown sugar and butter caramel with orange zest and vanilla. We invert the rolls while still warm, causing deep swirls of caramel to run through the bun leaving the pecans gooey and proud on top.

The silky not-too-sweet roll has a light, tender crumb that provides a divine contrast to the toffee-like caramel and crunch of toasted pecans.

The Pecan Sticky Buns are available individually in our retail cafés and as a four-pack. They are best served warm (5–8 minutes in a 325°F oven).

Flour, yeast, water, salt. That’s it. And yet, so many varieties of bread. We’ve been experimenting with these four essential ingredients—plus time, temperature and technique—ever since we first hung a Macrina Bakery sign over the door of our original bakery and café in Belltown in 1993. That’s a lot of loaves, a great many early mornings, a mountain of flour. The one constant: our desire to make great bread.And that means never losing your sense of wonder over the marvel that is bread.Increasingly, we’ve added wheat from local farmers. Cairnspring Mills in nearby Skagit Valley mills it to our specifications. We’ve spent some time exploring how hydration and fermentation impact different flours and have enjoyed the results of recent bread additions to our offerings. Beginning July 15, we will bake many of our loaves at a higher temperature. The deep caramelization of the crust adds a depth of flavor that you can’t get any other way. The higher oven temperature also produces a creamier crumb and a crackly crust. The moist interior also helps the bread keep better.When Macrina Bakery first opened, we had a small four-door electric Bongard oven. Now we have much bigger ovens and many more loaves to bake. But Leslie Mackie, Macrina’s founder, and Head Baker Phuong Bui, who has been with us since that first year, still oversee every element of our production. It’s fun to see them so excited about a loaf of bread, the way the crust crackles when you break into it, the texture of the crumb, and what one can do with just four simple ingredients.

Our growing line of grab-and-go savory items has given our customers a quick and easy way to put healthy, flavorful meals together. Our newest item is a Rustic Ready-To-Bake Pizza. This is not your typical frozen pizza! We form the crisp and flavorful crust from our Giuseppe dough and top it with our house tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan. “Years ago, we offered a pizzetta in our cafés, and it was a customer favorite,” says Leslie. “This is an adaptation from that, and I’ve been really loving this new version,” says Leslie. “We made it simple so you can dress it up with your favorite toppings at home. Lately, for me, it’s been prosciutto and roasted asparagus. But it’s also great just as it is.” The pizza bakes in 15–18 minutes, depending on how many toppings you add, and feeds two. 

You know that feeling when someone with the best intentions gives you a gift that you’ll never use? Even as you’re saying thank you, you know where you’ll put it—the shelf in the back of your closet with the other gifts waiting for your next white elephant gift exchange. As amusing as those are, you never want to see one a gift you’ve given be the subject of so much laughter.

With that in mind, we’ve designed two gift sets—one salty, one sweet—that you won’t miss the mark. In fact, we suspect they’ll be devoured before the new year!The Macrina Mug Gift Set features our new flower-design mug, ideal for coffee or tea, a pouch of our house-made Vanilla Sugar, and four of our Brown Sugar Shortbread Star Cookies.

The Macrina Artisan Appetizer Gift Set is an impromptu appetizer party in a box. It contains our Thin-cut Rye Crostini, a Mole Salami stick made by Coro, Apricot Conserves by Project Barnstorm, and Ritrovo’s Squashed Green Olives with Truffle. One of the crostini with a thin slice of salami and a dollop of the conserves is a salty-sweet combination that will send you to the moon. The tender green olives from Abruzzo, packed in olive oil with flecks of aromatic truffle, make the perfect salty chaser. All that’s missing is your favorite cocktail or glass of wine.The Macrina Mug Gift Set

• Macrina’s new flower-design coffee mug

• House-made Vanilla Sugar

• Four-Pack of Brown Sugar Shortbread Star Cookies

The Macrina Artisan Appetizer Gift Set

• Thin-cut Rye Crostini

• Coro Mole Salami Stick

• Project Barnstorm Apricot Conserves

• Squashed Green Olives with Truffle

We make our Chocolate Babka just a few times a year: Rosh Hashanah, Christmas and New Year’s. The loaf is rich like brioche bread, with an added swirl of chocolate glaze and roasted pecans. It’s delicious simply toasted with butter, but for a special brunch, use it as a base for French toast and serve it with your favorite breakfast sausage, raspberries and sweetened whipped cream!-Leslie MackieIngredients:Serves 41 loaf Macrina Chocolate Pecan Babka1 cup whipping cream2 Tbsp granulated sugar2 tsp pure vanilla extract, divided3 eggs2½ cups whole milk1 Tbsp brown sugar¼ cup canola oil1 pint fresh raspberries2 Tbsp powdered sugarMaple syrup (optional)Directions:Remove the Chocolate Pecan Babka from its paper mold. Cut into 8 even slices. Set aside.In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the whipping cream, granulated sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Whip for 2 to 3 minutes to form medium peaks and cool in the refrigerator until needed.Make the custard: In a medium bowl, add the eggs, milk, brown sugar and remaining vanilla extract. Whisk to combine.Submerge the sliced bread into the custard and soak for 1 minute, flipping them half way through so both sides are evenly coated. Place soaked slices on a plate and set aside.Place a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add just enough canola oil to coat the base of the pan. When the pan is hot (but not smoking), carefully transfer the soaked bread to the pan, fitting as many in as you can without crowding. Sauté for 2 minutes or until golden brown. Flip to cook evenly on both sides. Repeat this process until all 8 slices are cooked.Place 2 slices on each plate. Cut each slice on the bias and fan the four pieces across the plate. Garnish with sweetened whipped cream, fresh raspberries and a dusting of sifted powdered sugar. If you choose, serve with warm maple syrup (it’s divine). Enjoy!

Printable PDF here.

Our Flaky Pie Dough is the most frequently prepared recipe in our pastry department—and has been since the day we opened our doors in Belltown in 1993! The dough is perfect for so many kinds of baking, from savory quiche to double-crusted pies to classic tarts.Now, for the first time, we are selling our Flaky Pie Dough in our cafés. The dough is frozen in discs and sold in a two-pack. Each 12 oz. disc rolls out to make a ten-inch tart or a nine-inch pie shell. Or you can use the two discs together to create a double-crusted pie.

Your imagination is the limit for what you can make with our Flaky Pie Dough. To get you started, we’ve included three inspiring suggestions and one of our favorite new recipes with an accompanying video of Leslie showing you how to make it.

Stop by one of our cafés and grab a few of these. When inspiration strikes, you’ll appreciate the time-saving benefits of having these at the ready.Banana Nutella Hand Pies: With our pie dough, simple hand-pies are as easy to make as the filling inside. Start with the mouthwatering combination of bananas and Nutella (what could be easier?) and work your way up through your favorite sweet and savory combinations. Simply roll the dough out and cut 5-inch circles. Add your filling, fold the dough over, and crimp the edges. Bake at 400°F for 20–25 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Savory Galette with Butternut squash, Roasted Pear and Gorgonzola: Shortly after opening, Leslie introduced savory free-form folded tarts or galettes, and they quickly became customer favorites. This galette is a seasonal adaptation of the one on page 203 of our first cookbook. With the pie dough already made, it’s easy to turn out an elegant lunch. Or cut the galette into small slices and serve it as an appetizer.Harvest Pie: This winter pie is one Leslie serves at her home alongside pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. It’s also one of our most requested recipes. Our Flaky Pie Crust forms the bottom crust and the top is an almond streusel. You’ll find the recipe in our first cookbook on page 249.

Macrina’s Holiday Tart: With our frozen pie dough, this festive tart is a breeze to make. It’s both beautiful to look at and makes a refreshingly delicious end to a holiday meal. The tart cranberries find balance in the sweet filling and pecans add texture and flavor. Orange zest and a dash of brandy give it some zing. Find the video tutorial below!

[embed]https://youtu.be/nrnknwwMFpE[/embed]

Ingredients:Makes one 10” tart

One 12 oz. disc of Macrina Pie Dough

1 cup chopped pecans, roasted

3 eggs

⅔ cups light brown sugar

⅔ cups corn syrup

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature

2 tsp orange zest

½ tsp salt

1 Tbsp brandy

1½ cups fresh cranberries

1 Tbsp powdered sugar

Directions:

Thaw 1 disc of Macrina pie dough for 2 to 3 hours at room temperature. On a floured work surface, roll dough into a 14-inch circle that’s about an eighth-inch thick.

Fold dough in half and lift on to a 10-inch fluted tart pan. Drop dough into pan and flatten at base of pan and edges. With the remaining overhang, fold into the pan to create an edge that stands a half-inch above the top of the pan. With your hand, smooth the crust edge to a consistent thickness. Chill for 30 minutes in freezer.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Line the tart shell with parchment paper and fill it with baking weights or beans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the base appears dry. Remove the beans and let the shell cool.

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

Place the baked shell on a rimmed baking sheet. Add the pecans and cranberries to the tart shell and spread them so they’re evenly distributed.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, brown sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, orange zest, salt and brandy together until well combined. Pour the mixture over the pecans and cranberries. Place the tart in the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. When done, the center of the tart will be set and golden brown.

Let cool for 30 minutes. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

Granola, according to Wikipedia, was invented in 1863 by Dr. James Caleb Jackson as a food to serve at a health spa in New York. A century later, granola became a staple of the hippy culture in the 1960s and then went mainstream in the 1970s when the Quaker Oats Company, General Mills, and Kellogg’s got involved.

For most of us today, granola is a commodity—a cereal, sometimes dessert-like sweet, modestly healthy, to be eaten for breakfast or while hiking. Most commercial granola is highly flavored and fatty and often overly sweet, a far cry from Dr. Jackson’s original health food.

At Macrina, we sought to create a granola that matched our desires: healthy, energy-rich, flavorful, tasty enough to eat by the handful, and crunchy. Of course, rolled oats would be part of it, but there were so many other whole grains, nuts, seeds and dried fruits to consider. And so many oils to choose from! At our test kitchen, we assembled a grand array of quality choices and started experimenting. We kept at it: adding, then subtracting, then adding again. Baking longer at lower temperatures, then baking hotter and quicker.

Finally, we settled on a recipe we’re proud to call our own. It’s loaded with thick-cut golden oats, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, quinoa, pecans and dried tart and sweet cherries. Brown sugar and maple syrup add a subtle sweetness. Extra virgin olive oil and cinnamon and just enough salt add depth of flavor. It’s perfectly crunchy and addictive enough that you have to be careful when you start to eat it by the handful, but it’s not overly sweet. We even think Dr. Jackson would be as proud to serve it at his health spa as we are at the café. We recommend it on yogurt or with milk and topped with whatever fresh fruit is in season. You’ll find it in our cafés, both ready to eat and packaged in a 12 oz. heat-sealed pouch.

With sweater weather fast upon us, it’s time to cozy up with a bowl of soup. Not only have we resumed selling it at our cafés, but we’re also introducing a line of favorite Macrina soups packaged for you to take home to heat and serve.

 

“I love a bowl of soup on a crisp fall evening,” says Leslie Mackie, Macrina’s founder. “The simplicity of soup on those early, dark nights, and the aroma that fills the house as it’s heating, is soul-satisfying. And there’s nothing better than dipping a buttered slice of crusty bread in soup.”

Our first two are Tomato Bisque and Chicken & Vegetable. They come in 32 oz. containers, which is enough to serve four. Add a salad and a loaf of crusty bread and you’ve got dinner.

The Tomato Bisque is silky smooth and gets its deep, rich flavor from ripe tomatoes, roasted red peppers, fennel, rosemary, and thyme. The soup is thickened with rice and gets its velvety texture from being pureed with olive oil and cream. Perfectly paired with our grilled cheese sandwich.

The Chicken & Vegetable is our version of the classic hearty soup. It’s loaded with chicken and chopped vegetables in a fragrant vegetable stock seasoned with rosemary, thyme, and garlic.

Stop in one of our cafés to grab a healthy soup and a loaf of your favorite bread. Also available for delivery through DoorDash.

At Macrina, we make Challah every Friday, offering it in both plain and poppy seed. We braid three ropes of dough in the European Jewish tradition to represent unity. According to The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden, the three braids stand for truth, peace, and justice, and the poppy seeds represent manna that fell from heaven. We bake our challah loaves to a deep golden mahogany color and a firm crust. The soft, tight crumb pulls apart easily. The shiny, honey-sweetened bread is excellent toasted, turned into delicate french toast, or passed around the table with a meal.For the Jewish High Holidays, we form our Challah into rounds—or crowns—to recall the cycle of the year, or as Roden characterizes them, “where there is no beginning and no end.” The honey in the crowns represents hopes for a sweet new year. We make our crowns in both plain and studded with raisins.This year we will be offering our Challah Crowns from September 18–20 to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and September 27–28 to celebrate Yom Kippur. Whether they’re part of your religious tradition, or you just love great bread and the tradition of sharing it with others, stop by one of our cafés and get one of these beautiful, symbolic loaves.

There’s just something about that smell of cookies baking in the oven—that irresistible aroma, the building anticipation, the cookies warm and gooey, the melted chocolate and crispy edges. Our new ten-packs of Ready-to-Bake Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough make it tantalizingly easy to make your own.We freeze the dough in individual cookie-sized dough balls. You merely preheat the oven, pop them on a tray, and bake. You can make a few at a time or the whole batch at once. What you don’t eat right away will save for four weeks in your freezer but we are guessing they won’t last that long.They’re so good that Leslie named them after her daughter. Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookies are our version of the traditional Toll House classic. A combination of butter and shortening gives the cookies a soft, rich crumb. And the right blend of high-quality semisweet chocolate chips and a hefty pinch of sea salt give them the consummate chocolate chip cookie flavor. Food and Wine even included them in a list of America's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies.As lovely as they are at the café, they are even better right out of the oven, warm but still gooey. The kits are available at our cafés for $8.99, and available for delivery on DoorDash!Enjoy!

For most beekeepers, September marks the end of the honey collection season. To celebrate and call attention to the importance of honey as a natural sweetener and the essential role honeybees play as pollinators, we’re featuring our favorite products baked with honey all month long. At Macrina, we are proud to partner with the National Honey Board and showcase the many baked goods we make with honey, whose complex caramel sweetness adds a roundness of flavor compared to the narrower flavor profile of sugar.One of our most popular honey-sweetened products is our Vollkorn Loaf. This moist, hearty loaf is a German-style, full-grain bread blended with a six-grain cereal, toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds. A locally grown organic rye and a beer starter add a pleasantly sour flavor. Honey and molasses lend balance.In our cafés, we use honey to sweeten our Greek yogurt and layer it with our house-made berry compote. This creates the perfect nutritious fresh-tasting parfait.Later in September, we will be showcasing our Challah Crowns, both plain and with raisins, to celebrate Rosh Hashanah (September 18–20) and Yom Kippur (September 27– 28). Our Challah is traditional egg bread in the European Jewish tradition. Honey sweetened, this braided loaf has a firm crust a burnished golden mahogany color. The soft, tight crumb pulls apart easily.Another loaf sweetened that we sweeten with honey is our Whole Wheat Cider pan loaf. It’s excellent texture and flavor make this one of our most popular pan loaves. Apple cider and honey enhance the mild nutty flavor of Shepherd's Grain whole wheat flour, cracked wheat berries and toasted sesame seeds.These are just a few products we are showcasing, but we have many other recipes that include honey. Stay tuned throughout September for more featured products that celebrate the importance of our pollinators—and the lovely byproduct of their life-giving labor.

Turn your kitchen into a professional bakery with our new make-at-home kits.One silver lining of the quarantine is the perfect environment it has created for a surge in home cooking, bread making, and baking. Stores have been running short of flour and yeast. Newly minted bakers proudly fill their Instagram feeds with drool-worthy photos of crackly sourdough loaves, glistening muffins, and elegant cakes.But not everyone has the skills or time to produce pastry-chef quality loaves and pastries. A month ago, to help those who wanted to bake professional-grade loaves, we created a kit for an organic whole wheat loaf. The response has been overwhelmingly favorable. Some people make them with their kids; others have sent beautiful photos of their masterpieces. And many have requested kits for more items.So we’ve come up with three more make-at-home kits for some of our café favorites: Fresh Fruit Gluten-Free Muffins, Fresh Fruit Coffee Cake and Squash Harvest Bread.Each kit comes with baking molds (or muffin liners), with all dry ingredients pre-measured and ready to go, and easy-to-follow instructions. You choose your favorite seasonal fruits and supply common wet ingredients like milk, butter, and eggs.We love to see you in our cafés, but during these coronavirus times, we understand the desire to stay at home. The smell of your favorite breakfast treats baking might even drag your teenagers out of bed early. Enjoy!Fresh Fruit Gluten-Free Muffin KitWe started offering these in the cafés about five years ago, and even wheat lovers have become devotees. Our gluten-free dry mix takes the guesswork out of baking. Choose your favorite seasonal fruits, and we’ll help turn your kitchen into a high-end bakery.Fresh Fruit Coffee Cake KitThis coffee cake is one of our most requested recipes. The natural sweetness of the fruit permeates the cake and keeps it moist. Choose your favorite seasonal fruits, and we provide nearly everything else, including the baking molds.Squash Harvest Bread KitOur most popular breakfast bread has been on our menu since the day we opened in 1993. The list of ingredients is long, but our kit includes most of them pre-measured and ready to go. You provide the wet ingredients; we do the rest.The coronavirus has created the perfect environment for a surge in bread-baking. People suddenly have time around the house to do fiddly things they wouldn’t normally, like proofing yeast and monitoring rising dough. Some are looking for a fulfilling hobby, or for sustenance for their families, or just something to do with the home-schooled kids that’s not another video game. Measuring, kneading and shaping dough can be a balm for the anxiety that has accompanied the virus. And some people, faced with the prospect of the conveniences of modern life being upended, are feeling the need to be self-reliant, even in small ways.

Our new Chicken Pot Pie feeds four with a salad or a side. When so much that’s solid in life suddenly melts, little gives us more assurance that things will be alright than making pies—and eating them! But because you can’t subsist on dessert alone, we’ve spent the last few weeks developing Macrina’s version of a Chicken Pot Pie. They’re so good, we’ve been eating them for lunch AND dinner! Our savory team has been busy rolling out our delicious flaky pie dough, lining pie tins, and roasting chicken with fresh herbs. They mix the roasted chicken with onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, peas, corn, fresh thyme and a rich chicken gravy and top it with our famous pie crust. Beginning Monday, June 8, we’re selling them at our cafés for $16. All you have to do to prepare a healthy, comforting meal is pop them in a hot oven for 50 to 60 minutes and dress a salad. Simplicity and great ingredients are what make this pie taste so delicious. Fresh thyme infuses the gravy with its floral scent, and generous pieces of roasted chicken with hand-chopped vegetables coated in rich gravy under our buttery crust will remind you why this soul-satisfying dish has stood the test of time. And at just $16, you can eat fabulously without feeling apologetic. On the off chance you don’t clean the dish, leftovers will save for three to five days in the fridge. If you can’t make it into one of our cafés, DoorDash will deliver them to your door. Enjoy! 

Our Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix is now available through DoorDash. This mix makes our famous cookie easy to prepare at home. With a minimum of effort, you’ll have warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies that’ll impress the shrewdest palate.“Like the omelet, which many believe to be the true test of a chef, the humble chocolate chip cookie is the baker’s crucible. So few ingredients, so many possibilities for disaster,” David Leite wrote in a 2008 New York Times article. Given the number of mediocre versions that are all too easily found, it’s hard not to agree with him.At Macrina, our house version is Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. Named after Leslie’s daughter, Olivia, the cookies are Macrina’s version of the traditional Toll House classic. A combination of butter and shortening gives the cookies a soft, rich crumb and that consummate chocolate chip cookie flavor comes from the right blend of high-quality semisweet chocolate chips and a hefty pinch of sea salt. Food and Wine even included them in a list of America’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies.You can find the recipe in the Macrina Bakery and Café Cookbook. But for those of you who love homemade cookies without too much fuss, try our Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix. You supply a stick of butter, an egg, and a quarter cup of shortening (Crisco or another trans-fat free version). We provide everything else, including the blend of premium flours we use at the bakery.We recommend using a stand mixer, but you can also hand mix if you don’t have one. Our mix has the sugar on top. You scoop it into the mixer and blend it with the butter and shortening. Add the egg and then dump the rest of the mix in and hand mix until incorporated. Chill the dough for two hours. (You can skip this step if you’re in a hurry, but if you’ve got the time, it helps the moisture in the dough to fully incorporate, which leads to a better consistency.) Scoop onto a tray, bake, and voilà—the best homemade cookies you’ll ever have.The cookie mix also makes a fabulous gift to mail to friends and family that could use a pick-me-up. The mix is shelf-stable so you can keep backups in the pantry for when that irrepressible urge strikes.

Looking for something with delicious flavor to add to your holiday table? Or a showy appetizer? Our Winter Pear Crown will make a gorgeous addition to any meal. Or serve it as an appetizer with Cambozola or your favorite blue cheese.

Made with ripe Washington State pears and spiked with a dash of black pepper, the bread has a natural sweetness and the moist texture of a classic French loaf.

Leslie began making this beautiful hand-formed crown during the holiday season in Macrina’s early days, and it has earned a devoted following. Utilizing the excellent late-season pears—Washington State is the top grower of pears in the country—we dice the plumpest, tender Bartlett pears available and gently mix them into the dough with just enough black pepper to casually announce itself. Phuong Bui, our head baker, and his team then hand-shape each loaf into a crown.

Any leftovers make a luxurious breakfast treat. Warm it and serve slices with butter, or up your game and present it with a ramekin of olive tapenade. The bread is versatile, makes a stunning table centerpiece, and goes with almost anything. Get one while you can. We only make them during the holiday season.

At Macrina, we love baking and we love community. The annual holiday cookie exchange is a great example of this—each cookie a story, each an act of love. It’s a time to visit your neighbors and share good tidings. Not much tops baking family recipes with friends, but when you don’t have the time, Macrina has you covered. Our collection of 20 holiday cookies, sold in a reusable Panibois wooden baking box, will bring joy to your friends and neighbors. Each of the six delicious types of cookie has a story and a distinct flavor.

Read our blog to hear how one of Macrina’s partners, Michelle Galvin, has rekindled and nurtured dear friendships through an annual holiday cookie baking gathering and to learn more about our Holiday Cookie Box.

A few years after college, newly married and busy establishing a career, finding time to visit with dear friends was a challenge. In high school, Trina, Kerri and I would spend whole days together, talking every day. But now, despite the desire, we barely saw each other.

With Christmas approaching, we made a promise we’d start a new tradition: a holiday cookie party. We all loved baking and revered the neighborly tradition of the cookie exchange. What better way to reconnect than spending an afternoon sharing and baking family recipes together?

At the first gathering, Trina brought a vintage pizzelle maker. The family heirloom looked, uh, well-loved. It was easy to imagine the hundreds or thousands of thin wafer-like cookies it had produced over the years. Making 200 pizzelles alone would be a monotonous task, but the repetitive task of spooning dollop after dollop of dough into the rustic pizzelle iron with friends made it fun.  We laughed a lot and had plenty of time to catch up.

Next, Trina taught us her Nonna’s biscotti recipe, the best in all of Montecatini she’d claimed. Her “trick” was to toast the almonds before adding them to the dough. Nothing satisfies the need for crunch like biscotti do, and I loved hearing the stories of Trina’s grandmother.

Since only two baking sheets could fit in the oven at a time, we spent an entire Saturday baking. It was like old times, talking of matters big and small, remembering old stories and sharing new ones. And at the end of it, we each had a large box of cookies to share with our friends, neighbors and family.

We promised we’d do it again the next year. And we did. And the year after that, too. Sometime in the early aughts, one of us showed up with a special holiday cookie edition of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine. We tried making her Chocolate Crackle Cookies. Soon our hands were sticky with chocolate dough. But they were so delicious straight from the oven—chocolate crack-le!—I worried we wouldn’t have enough to give away. Of course, they got added to the yearly event. Even after all these years, Kerri and Trina still debate whether they should be crisp or chewy and how long to bake them. I love them both ways—and both of them—so I sit back and enjoy the playful debate.

 

As we added cookies, we also added kids. Gingerbread cookies with bright white royal frosting and decorated sugar cookies made their way onto our cookie trays. With the many small helping hands, the mess grew exponentially. The number of hands helping clean up did not! But the kids were thrilled to help. Though some of them struggled just a little to part with the cookies, they were all proud to present their teachers with plates of cookies they’d helped make.

Not only did I catch up with my friends, but now we also traded parenting secrets and potty training strategies. Later those stories included the challenges of starting new schools, puberty and middle school, sharing the car keys with new drivers, and college tours.

Not that it was all free of tragedy. At one gathering, midway through the pizzelle making, Trina dropped the heirloom iron and it broke. (Thank goodness, it was her—not me!) We raced out to a fancy kitchen store for a replacement. It sufficed but didn’t make cookies anywhere nearly as good, or as beautiful. So, we took to eBay for a replacement, carefully inspecting images and bidding patiently. Three years later, we had not one but two vintage pizzelle makers—exact replicas—safe cover if the dropsies came over us again.

With more kids and more plates of cookies to assemble, the single oven was a bottleneck. So, we ventured down to the Macrina test kitchen in Kent. The kitchen had so much space and fancy ovens galore. We were like pros in there. In just three hours, we had plates and plates of cookies, and we’d barely broken a sweat! We realized that the point of the gathering wasn’t about speed and efficiency (although the convection oven with rotating racks that baked all our cookies evenly was amazing), but nurturing friendships of more than 40 years. We’re back to the two cookie sheets oven.

Fortunately, it is the exception when time and circumstance doesn’t allow for our annual event. The few times it has happened, all three of us were very grateful that we could count on the fabulous bakers at Macrina. Sure, we missed the time together. But we were still able to bring our friends, family and neighbors lovely gift boxes of homemade holiday cookies we could be proud of.

Macrina Holiday Cookie box is an assortment of 20 cookies bundled in a reusable Panibois wooden baking box. It contains:

2 Gingerbread

3 Chocolate Crinkle

3 Mexican Wedding Balls

4 Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti

4 Pecan Rosemary Shortbread

4 Rugelach