Category Archives: Menu

Flaky Pie Dough Four Ways

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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!

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.

A Granola Worth Celebrating

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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.

New To-Go Soup

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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.

Challah Crowns for the Jewish High Holidays 

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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.

New Product Alert: Macrina Bakery’s Ready-to-Bake Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough 

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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!

September: National Honey Month 

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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.

Our New Make-at-Home Kits 

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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 Kit

We 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 Kit

This 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 Kit

Our 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.

Comfort Me with Chicken Pot Pies

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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! 

Olivia’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

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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.

Winter Pear Crown

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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.