Monthly Archives: August 2026

English Muffins for September Mornings

Posted on by
Infographic: Back to School Special. English Muffin Mornings. 4-Packs are 15% Off. All September. Order Now.

Those first school mornings run on a tightly wound clock, especially after a more relaxed summer routine. Our English Muffins can help make breakfast easy. With lunches to be packed and shoes to be found, the meal is often a rushed afterthought.

We launched Macrina English Muffins this spring after nearly two years of development. They’ve been building a loyal following ever since. They’re naturally leavened with our sour white starter and made from a blend of organic white and whole wheat flours. A slow fermentation gives the spongy interior a mild tang and a deeper flavor. Toasted well, they come out crisp at the edges, chewy in the middle, with a craggy surface made for butter and jam. Our muffins are also thicker than their supermarket cousins, which means they’ll hold up to just about any topping you choose, whether it’s a poached egg or a stacked sandwich.

The English muffin, for the record, is not quite English. Welsh cooks were baking small yeast cakes on hot griddles a thousand years ago. The version Americans know came from Samuel Bath Thomas, a baker who left Plymouth, England, for New York in 1874. He found work in a city bakery, opened his own in 1880 and sold a thinner, split-and-toast cousin of the crumpet. New Yorkers took to it. The English muffin has been an American breakfast standard with a British name ever since.

They’re best toasted with butter and Project Barnstorm conserve, but they can be used for so much more.

Here are some of our other favorite preparations:

Eggs Benedict: The classic. Canadian bacon, a poached egg, hollandaise and a toasted muffin that adds flavor and holds up to the sauce. 

Breakfast Sandwich: Bacon or sausage, a fried egg, cheese melted over the top. Warm, savory, and satisfying.

Breakfast Tartine with Fresh Tomato & Sauce Verte: Our recipe of the month this past May. Click here for the recipe.

Avocado Toast: Start with a well-toasted muffin. Mashed avocado works into the craggy surface. Finish with lemon, flaky salt and a few chili flakes.

Tuna Melt: Tuna salad, a slice of tomato, cheddar, then a few minutes under the broiler until the cheese bubbles.

Meet Our Family: Scott Romine

Posted on by

Scott Romine started at Macrina in 2013, driving deliveries overnight. About a year and a half in he moved up to shift lead and stayed there a couple of years before the night schedule wore him down. He found a home in the office as a customer service rep, still close to the delivery side, running routes and keeping the vans up. That connection led him into hiring for the department. When Macrina grew enough in 2019 to need a full-time HR person, Scott had the experience and got the job. He has been in HR ever since, promoted to general manager in 2023 and to the leadership team this year.

His title now is human resources manager, and the work reaches every corner of the company. He oversees one person directly, but the job puts him alongside everyone, from general managers to crew. No two days look alike. He keeps the bakery compliant with labor law, walks employees through their benefits, makes sure open jobs get filled, and helps sort out the hard situations that come up in any workplace. Helping people is the part he likes best. When someone has a question about benefits or a problem on the floor, being the one who can smooth it out is what keeps him coming back.

He has watched the place grow from the inside. Scott helped move the bakery from the cramped SODO space into the much larger warehouse in Kent, and they did it without losing a single day of production for the wholesale customers who count on them. Back in SODO you could barely thread through the metro racks to pack the bread. He figured they would never fill the Kent building. Now the talk is about space being tight again.

His proudest moments run alongside the hard ones. Guiding the bakery and its people through the pandemic. Getting Macrina fully staffed again in the years after. Moving HR off a bespoke system onto real software. What he loves most, though, is the people. Macrina’s core value of staying positive is the one that sticks with him. Nobody wants to spend their days somewhere negative, he says. It is bad for the soul. What sets the place apart is plain in the halls. Walk through the bakery and people smile and say hi.

Scott lives within walking distance of downtown White Center, in a house he and his wife bought in 2022, a stone’s throw from where he grew up. He shares it with his wife and their cats. When he is off the clock he is usually out skateboarding. Winters he walks Alki and plays video games.

Leslie’s Box of Favorites, Once a Month 

Posted on by
Join Our Monthly Subscription Club. Each month, enjoy a handpicked selection of our signature savory and sweet baked goods. Join The Club

Leslie Mackie opened Macrina Bakery in Belltown in 1993 to share her love of the simple pleasure of good food and community. In that same spirit, we created our Monthly Subscription Club. Leslie chooses the box each month, so the contents change with the season. Past boxes held Irish soda bread in March, a strawberry rhubarb tartlet in May, and lobster buns in July. You don’t know exactly what’s coming. You only know it’s going to be good. 

Every box is a mix. A loaf or rolls, something savory, something from the pastry case. Leslie decides, so you discover what the season brings without choosing a thing. 

The box arrives fresh on a Thursday. Friday, breakfast comes out of it. Saturday, brunch. Sunday, coffee and the last pastry. 

A box for two is $50 a month and contains six to eight different items. A box for four is $95, about twice as much. Boxes are ready the second Thursday of each month, picked up at our SODO café or delivered to your door for $15 more. Sign up by the last day of the month to get the next box. Skip a month, pause, or cancel whenever.

Sign up here

Meet Our Family: Aaron Rose 

Posted on by

Aaron Rose turned 19 a month into his first job at Macrina, packing bread in 2015. He made delivery lead before his first anniversary, then assistant manager a year after that. In 2021 he started splitting his time with the maintenance team, went full time by late 2022, and was soon promoted to maintenance general manager. The trade was already in him. His father was a pipe fitter and then an HVAC tech, and Aaron grew up on the jobsite beside him. 

Today he oversees the facilities, equipment and machines at every Macrina location. The maintenance team is two people, Aaron and his assistant manager, Amos, plus whoever they can and need to pull in to keep the bakery running. He starts wherever he’s needed and bends his schedule to whatever department needs him most. Much of the work is after hours and out of sight. He plans repairs and preventive maintenance as far ahead as he can, though something new always lands on the list. The variety is what he loves. Instead of one trade repeated daily, he gets all of them: plumbing, HVAC, electrical, control voltage, mechanical, and on down the line. Every machine is its own puzzle, with wiring diagrams and components and failures that can only be learned through experience. 

He’s watched the place grow from the inside. A decade ago, maintenance ran out of a cramped corner behind the SODO café. Making every inch count was key. Now there’s a wholesale warehouse in Kent with room to spare. People have come and gone, but Aaron still sees some of the same delivery crew who were there his first day, and the volume of bread moving through is nothing like back then. 

His favorite thing about Macrina is that every manager seems to be pulling toward the same vision. “We want success for each other, and everyone here is a great resource for help,” he says. A close second: the pastries. The culture, he adds, is nothing like a jobsite. It’s more a “let’s work together” than a “just getting the job done” kind of place. 

Aaron lives in Burien with his wife and three daughters. His hours still move around, with a night shift here and there, but it suits his present lifestyle better than his delivery days when nights were the whole job. Between his family and the bakery, he figures he’s found the balance. He skateboards with his kids, gardens with his wife, and travels with all of them. After the work around the house is done, of course. 

In a Ugandan Refugee Camp, ADAMÂ Bakery Rises

Posted on by
A Sweet Way to Give Back. ADAMA Foundation Fundraiser. We're donating 100% of the net proceeds from our larger Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies from August 10-16 to support ADAMA Foundation and their bakery in Uganda.

ADAMÂ’s new head baker, Alex Tamale, thought he had joined just another bakery. Then came his first Friday distribution. “When we arrived in the community and I saw so many children desperately waiting for something to eat, I was overwhelmed and cried,” he says. “It was a moment that changed me.”

The ADAM bakery sits near the Oruchinga Settlement Camp in southwest Uganda, home to more than 9,000 refugees from East Africa. The bakery gives refugees, especially women, the skills to earn a livelihood. And it feeds the camp’s most vulnerable residents, the children. “Our long-term vision is to provide one meal a day to all five thousand children in the camp,” says Ayelet Berman-Cohen, ADAMÂ’s founder.

Our annual fundraiser for ADAMÂ, now in its fifth year, has a single goal: $2,500 for a second mixer the bakers can use for both breads and cakes. Last year, we raised money for electric ovens. “Macrina’s gifts to us completely changed the bakery,” Ayelet says. “From baking in one fire oven to now baking with two electric ovens. Incredible generosity. We are so grateful.”

The ovens set off a year of growth. An experienced local baker now works alongside the refugee bakers, sharpening their skills and raising their output. A new sales manager and a small delivery van carry ADAMÂ breads, under the bakery’s own label, into the surrounding communities, where return customers wait for the daily delivery. Every step toward a self-sustaining bakery frees more energy for the giving programs inside the camp.

Each Friday, the team distributes fresh rolls and nutritious porridge, made in the ADAMÂ kitchen, to more than six hundred children. The Umoja drummers, refugees from Burundi, ride along and turn each stop into a celebration. And ADAMÂ Aid, launched last year after international aid organizations left Oruchinga, keeps growing. Every month it delivers rations of beans and corn flour, milled on-site, to seventy of the camp’s most vulnerable families, up from fifty at its launch.

“It is easy to look at a bag of flour or a sack of beans as just food,” says Angella Kushemererwa of the ADAMÂ leadership team. “But to a family who has absolutely nothing, it is so much more. It is a lifeline.”

“We are honored to support the ADAMÂ bakery and the refugees they serve again this year,” says Scott France, president and co-owner of Macrina Bakery. “Any contribution, however small, makes a profound impact. Please join us in extending our bakery community to our friends in Uganda.”

From August 10–16, every large Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookie helps feed the children of Oruchinga. You can also donate directly to ADAM here.

Recipe of the Month: Blackberry Peach Summer Crisp

Posted on by
Blackberry Peach Summer Crisp

Blackberries and peaches have always been my favorite summer fruits. I have loads of blackberry bushes around my house, and I buy peaches from the market and ripen them until they perfume the room. When you use seasonally ripe fruit, you hardly need to add much sugar, and the results are heavenly. For the cleanest peach wedges, blanch and peel the fruit just before assembling, so the slices hold their shape under the crumble. Serve warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Makes one 9-inch crisp

Printable PDF of this version here.

CRUMBLE TOPPING

⅓ cup unbleached all-purpose flour 

¼ cup thick-cut oats 

⅓ cup almonds, sliced or coarsely chopped 

⅓ cup light brown sugar 

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into ½-inch cubes 

FRUIT FILLING

4 ripe peaches (about 4 cups) 

4 cups fresh blackberries 

½ cup granulated sugar 

2 Tbsp light brown sugar 

3 Tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour 

¼ tsp lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Brush the inside of a 9-inch pie dish with neutral oil or melted butter to prevent sticking. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, oats, almonds, brown sugar, and cubed butter. Mix on medium speed until the mixture resembles a coarse, crumbly texture. Set aside. 

Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Cut a ¼-inch X in the bottom of each peach. Set up an ice bath in a medium bowl. Drop the peaches into the boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes, until the skin at the X loosens, then transfer them to the ice bath to cool. Peel the peaches, cut into ¾-inch wedges, and halve each wedge horizontally. 

Place the peaches in a large bowl and add the blackberries, granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, and lemon zest. Toss gently with your hands, then pour into the prepared dish. Level the fruit and scatter the crumble topping evenly over the top. 

Set the dish on a rimmed sheet pan and bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the juices bubble around the edges and the topping is golden brown. Let cool 30 minutes, then serve with your favorite vanilla ice cream.

Bellden Café: Crafted with Love, Served with Heart

Posted on by
Bellden Cafe store front

The story starts in a hospital. Originally from Shanghai, Claire Sumadiwirya moved to Bellevue at twelve. Years later, while the family was back in Shanghai, her eldest son fell ill, and they had to stay at the hospital. Hospitals there don’t always have cafés the way American ones do, and she found herself lonely, sleep-deprived, and hungry. A janitor looked after her and bought her coffee. That small kindness from a stranger stayed with her. When the family returned to Bellevue, she opened a café built to pass it forward. The little boy in the logo is her son.

At Bellden Café in downtown Bellevue, every item on the menu gives back to charity. You feed yourself well, and you help someone else along the way. That is the idea Claire built the place around, and the message behind the café’s slogan: crafted with love, served with heart.

Bellden Cafe Sign
Claire Sumadiwirya

Claire earned degrees in sociology and finance from the University of Washington and an MBA from Seattle University. Bellden’s model rests on what she calls three folds. The first is the café itself, where a rotating drink is dedicated to a charity partner and ten percent of those sales are donated. The second is Golden Life, a retail line made in house, with twenty percent of every sale going to the partners. The third is the Bellden Social Club, which hosts private dinners and volunteer projects through the year. “We help people understand that everybody can make an effort to make a difference in the community,” she says.

What sets the business apart is the math. Every year, Bellden donates the maximum it can after breaking even. Over eight years, that has added up to nearly half a million dollars. The Social Club keeps the calendar full, a Latino market one month, a Midlakes United soccer game the next, a Pride Mimosa Garden with the Bellevue Downtown Association. A recent five-course private dinner for the Boys & Girls Club raised more than fourteen thousand dollars in one evening.

The giving would mean little if the food weren’t good, and Claire is unbending on that point. She built the menu herself. Other than coffee and bread, everything is made in house from her own recipes, which is why her sourcing partners matter so much. Macrina has supplied Bellden’s bread for much of its run, held to the same standard as everything else that leaves the kitchen. “The quality of the food we create together is held to a really high standard,” she says, “and that’s how we differentiate our products from other cafés in the area.” It is bread, she adds, that she would feel comfortable serving to the people she loves most.

Bellden pastries and drink
Bellden food items

The deepest part of Bellden’s mission is who does the work. Hiring people in need isn’t a side project at the café. It is the main focus of the training. Claire hires and trains refugees, neurodivergent young people, and survivors of human trafficking. The training is personalized, trauma-informed, and language-accessible, so nearly anyone can find a place to work. “These are historically marginalized groups,” she says, “but they’re some of the most courageous people to work with.” The approach has earned Bellden the King County Executive’s Small Business of the Year award for workforce development. In eight years, more than two hundred people have come through the café’s doors.

One of those people is Samuel. He came to Bellden through the Gobi School transitional program and became the café’s first neurodivergent hire. The team trained him, and this April he joined the U.S. Navy. He is one story among many, but he puts a face and a name to what the numbers describe. “Now he’s out in the world,” Claire says, “helping people and protecting our country.”

For the coming year, Claire hopes to invest more in workforce development and to deepen long-term partnerships like the one with Macrina. She wants something lasting, not just a café but a social hub that brings goodness to the community. You can taste the result on the menu in Bellevue and find the Bellden Life products online. Every order is a small act of giving.