Baking homemade pastries for your holiday brunch is intimidating for many home cooks, but this straightforward recipe produces a delicate, golden-brown treat that’s worth the time. The tender, buttery dough is filled with a rich almond paste and topped with a sweet glaze and sliced almonds. If you want to make the dough the night before, let it rise in the refrigerator. In the morning, give it an hour on the counter to come to room temperature before you roll it out. Or make it start to finish that morning and serve it at a noonish brunch along with fruit, eggs, bacon, juice and coffee. While the dough rises, you’ll have plenty of time to prepare the other items. The bear claw will make a beautiful centerpiece on your table.

Printable PDF of this recipe here.
Makes 6-8 Bear Claws.

 
DOUGH: FIRST STEP
¾ cup whole milk, slightly warm
⅓ cup sugar
2 tsp dried yeast
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

DOUGH: SECOND STEP
2 eggs
¼ cup sugar
1½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
1¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

ALMOND FILLING
1 cup sliced almonds
½ cup sugar
1½ Tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1½ Tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
2 eggs
4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

GLAZE
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 Tbsp milk
½ tsp almond extract

ASSEMBLY
1 egg
1 tsp water
½ cup sliced almonds

 
DOUGH: FIRST STEP
Whisk ingredients together until smooth and there are no lumps. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 2 hours.

DOUGH: SECOND STEP
Transfer dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with dough hook attachment. Add the eggs, sugar, vanilla, almond extract, flour and salt. Mix on low speed for 3 minutes to incorporate the ingredients. Add the butter and increase speed to medium for 10 minutes (dough will ball at the base of the dough hook).
Remove the dough hook and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for 2 hours or until doubled in size. While the dough is rising, make the almond filling and glaze.

ALMOND FILLING
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place sliced almonds on the lined baking sheet. Roast for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool.
In the bowl of a food processor, add the toasted almonds, sugar, vanilla, almond extract and flour. Purée to make a paste. Add the eggs and continue to purée. Add the butter pieces one at a time, pulsing to incorporate before adding the next. Process until smooth. Transfer filling into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Set aside.

GLAZE
In a medium bowl, combine the glaze ingredients and whisk to combine. Cover the surface of the glaze with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Set aside.

ASSEMBLY
Increase the oven temperature to 375°F.
Whisk 1 egg and 1 tsp water together to make an egg wash. Set aside.
Pull the dough onto a floured work surface. Roll it into a long, thin rectangle (24 x 4 x ½-inch thick).
Mark a line down the center of your rectangle lengthwise. Evenly spread ¾ cup of the almond filling down the middle from end to end. Brush egg wash on one legthwise edge and fold the dough over to create a long, narrow strip. Use a fork to crimp and seal the edge. Lift onto the lined baking sheet, bending into the shape of a horseshoe to fit.
Spoon the remaining almond filling over the dough and brush any uncovered areas with egg wash. Sprinkle sliced almonds over the top. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Let cool for 15 minutes and drizzle with the glaze. Slice into 6 to 8 segments and enjoy!

In 1994, shortly after Macrina first opened, Phuong Hoang Bui came to Macrina through the International Rescue Committee. He was a boat refugee and had been trying to get to America from his native Vietnam for years. Eager to work and learn, Phuong quickly became a prized employee. Flash forward nearly 30 years: Phuong is Macrina’s Head Baker—as he has been for over 20 years—overseeing daily the production of thousands of loaves.  

Many others of Vietnamese descent have followed Phuong to Macrina, and today you’re as likely to hear Vietnamese on the bakery floor as you are English. Instrumental to our Vietnamese community is the nonprofit Helping Link, an all-volunteer organization that provides free services and programs such as citizenship classes, technology training, information and referral services, English classes, and much more.  “Minh-Duc, the founder and Executive Director of Helping Link, works tirelessly to accomplish as much as is humanly possible to further their mission,” says Scott France, President and part-owner of Macrina. “The work they do provides vital assistance to the thriving Vietnamese community in and around Seattle. Macrina has been a Helping Link sponsor from the very beginning.” 

Minh-Duc Nguyen arrived in Redmond in 1975 as a child. Her family had escaped Vietnam at the fall of Saigon. Sponsors at a local church helped the family get settled. Minh-Duc and her four siblings found the support they needed, worked hard in school, and they all graduated from the University of Washington. In the early nineties, after a trip back to Vietnam, her first, Minh-Duc saw the lack of social services available to new arrivals in America and wanted to do something to help lessen their pain. She started Helping Link in 1993, the same year Leslie Mackie opened Macrina. Helping Link began as a drop-in hour to help Vietnamese refugees like herself with translation services. “I recruited two of my Boeing colleagues,” says Minh-Duc. “We were young, idealistic. We helped translate documentation from local agencies for schooling or housing and job applications. Overnight it got way out of hand. We were overwhelmed. Rather than quit, we recruited eight more friends to help. 

Needing more space, they secured a room at the Rainier Beach Library that had room for 20. On the first night, over 120 people showed up. The police and fire departments worried there was a major incident.  

With so much interest and need, Helping Link eventually secured a space the International District/Little Saigon. Volunteers turned the space into three classrooms and an administrative space. It became a center for Seattle’s thriving Vietnamese community. Today, nearly 40 volunteers—the heart and soul of the organization—teach ESL and technology classes, work as mentors and tutors, provide information and referral services, and host community events. All services are rooted in cultural values of family stability, self-sufficiency, and resilience. Their goals are employment, higher education, fulfilling civic duty, and promoting and preserving culture. “I’m so appreciative that Leslie and Scott keep investing in the Vietnamese community,” says Minh-Duc. “They brought us to Macrina to teach language skills and basic computer skills for their managers so they can do schedule and email. Macrina was an employer I could see wanted to be there for their employees from the beginning. That’s a huge investment. We work with many companies, and Macrina has been a champion at investing in their employees.” 

Helping Link is urgently searching for a new space. After 20 years in Little Saigon, their tenancy was terminated at the end of August due to a sale of the property to a developer. They are seeking assistance to find a welcoming new home in Seattle or King County, as well as relocation support of both time and resources. To get involved, please email Minh-Duc at info@helpinglink.org.  

Julia Child loved sole meunière—it’s where her love of French food started. Simple and balanced flavors—mild fish, browned butter, fresh lemon juice—are what make this classic dish so charming. After watching Julia, the inspiring documentary on Julia Child, I found myself craving the dish. I whipped up these open-faced sole meunière sliders with herbs from my garden. The dish comes together in 15 to 20 minutes. Add a salad and a bottle of white wine, and you’ve got a wonderful casual summer evening meal.

Printable PDF of this recipe here. 

  
 Makes 8 Sliders
8-pack Macrina Rustic Potato Sliders
½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp black pepper
12 to 14 oz Dover or Petrale sole
½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
1 Tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped
1 Tbsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 red jalapeño pepper, thinly sliced, seeds removed
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

  
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

Cut 4 slider buns in half and place the tops and bottoms on the prepared baking sheet and set aside.

In a pie pan, combine the flour, salt and pepper. Cut the sole into 8 pieces (approx. 2½-inches each). Coat each piece in the seasoned flour and leave in the pie pan until needed.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, clarify the butter: as the butter melts, it will foam on top, and the whey will fall to the bottom. Watch it carefully. Once the foaming subsides, you should be able to spoon off the clear, golden butter. Set it aside and discard the whey.

Place the baking sheet with the sliders in the oven to warm for 5 minutes.

Add the clarified butter to a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. When the butter is hot and beginning to brown, add the sole pieces. Pan fry them for 1 minute on each side. Place a piece of the sautéed sole onto each of the halved sliders.

Add the chopped herbs, jalapeño and lemon juice to the remaining butter in the sauté pan. Season to taste with salt and cracked black pepper. Spoon the browned butter sauce over each slider. Serve warm with a favorite glass of dry white wine.

Enjoy!

We’re fortunate to have such a great assortment of summer fruit in the Pacific Northwest. One of our favorite ways to celebrate our delicious berries is in this Summer Berry Charlotte. This recipe calls for blackberries, blueberries and strawberries, but feel free to substitute raspberries, marionberries or red currants. We use a 9-inch stainless steel bowl lined in plastic wrap, but you can use a pudding mold if you have one. A patchwork of thinly sliced brioche forms the crust and a mixture of warm cooked berries thickened with gelatin make a juicy filling that retains some of the fruit’s texture. The dessert requires chilling for a minimum of 4 hours to set up properly, so plan accordingly. When it isn’t peak berry season, we recommend using high-quality IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) berries, many of which are grown near Lynden, in the northwest corner of Washington state.

 
Printable PDF of the recipe here. Makes 8-12 Servings 

 
1 Macrina Brioche Loaf
4 cups fresh blackberries
4 cups fresh blueberries
3 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
½ cup water
1¾  cup sugar
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
1 package + 1 tsp powdered gelatin (package is 1 oz)

Line a 9-inch stainless steel mixing bowl with plastic wrap. This will take 2 pieces. Each side should extend 3 to 4 inches.

Remove the crust from the brioche loaf (top, bottom, ends and sides). Cut the brioche into quarter-inch slices. Begin lining the bowl by cutting a circle from a slice to match the diameter of the bowl base. With the bottom covered, line the walls of the bowl. Larger pieces work best. You’ll need to cut little triangles here and there, in patchwork fashion, until the bowl’s interior is covered. Don’t discard the remaining brioche—you’ll use it to form the top layer.

In a large saucepan, add half the berries and the water, sugar and lemon zest. Cook over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes to release the juices. The berries should be very soupy. Turn off the heat and sprinkle the powdered gelatin over the surface of the saucepan. Whisk the gelatin into the mixture.

Add the remaining berries. Over low heat, warm the whole mixture for 2 to 4 minutes (you want the second addition of fruit to retain its form).

Ladle some of the berry mixture juices over the brioche lining the bowl until it’s completely saturated and purple in color. Then carefully pour or ladle the rest of the berry mixture in. Top with a single layer of the remaining brioche slices. Press gently to compress the contents in the bowl.

If any brioche strips lining the side extend beyond the top layer, use a knife and cut them level with the top layer.

Fold the extended plastic wrap over the charlotte to seal it.

Find something heavy (such as a small plate with a glass of water on top)—roughly the same diameter as the bowl—and place it on top as a weight to continue to compress the charlotte and ensure the brioche is fully saturated in berry juice.

Chill for a minimum of 4 hours to set the gelatin.

Remove the plastic from the top of the charlotte. Place a serving dish over the rim of the bowl and invert for serving. Remove the bowl and peel away the plastic wrap. If you have any white or unsaturated areas, heat a handful of blueberries with a splash of water and sugar and cook until the berries are soft. Pass this through a sieve and brush the white areas with the warm glaze. Any excess can be used as a sauce when serving.

Garnish with fresh berries. Edible flowers also make a beautiful garnish. Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Macrina is donating all net proceeds to the Adamâ Bakery during the week of July 25 from café sales of our four packs of Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies. We also urge café customers to donate directly to the bakery here.

“I am happy now that I spend most of my days baking, and my nights are peaceful,” said Kareem, an eighteen-year-old refugee who lost his family to violence in Congo. “I thank the bakers who have trained us. They have contributed so much to my trauma healing. Above all, I have found a family in Adamâ.”

The ADAMÂ Bakery is located by the Oruchinga Settelment Camp in southwest Uganda. The camp is home to over 9,000 refugees from Burundi, Congo, Rwanda, and other parts of East Africa. Many have escaped unspeakable tragedies at home.

Jeffrey Hamelman and Mitch Stamm, both renowned and recently retired bakers, were invited by Ayelet Berman-Cohen, the founder and executive director of the Adamâ Foundation, to travel to Uganda and help the bakery get going. They spent a few weeks there. For nearly thirty years, Leslie has collaborated on regional events with Jeffery and Mitch through the Bread Bakers Guild of America. Through this connection, Macrina learned about Adamâ and was inspired to become an annual donor.

“When the refugees arrive, they are given four eucalyptus poles and a tarp,” says Jeffrey. “The tarp and poles become their home. New arrivals are also given a machete and a hoe so they can hack out some jungle and hopefully get some seeds. If they are successfully raising their prospects, they use homemade bricks to build a mud hut with no windows, no electricity, no running water, and an amazing number of people are crammed into a tiny space. Refugees get $3.74 a month from the UN for food.”

“They’ve been stripped of everything except their dignity,” Mitch says. “They ran into the bush with nothing upon seeing family members killed. Some people are born in the refugee camp. They’ll spend their entire lives there.”

The bakery is located in a small house next to the refugee camp. The oven is wood fired, as is the proof box. A 35-kilo electric mixer and an electric bread slicer are all the powered equipment they have. Twenty-four bakers arrive every day for work. They learn a trade, earn an income, and distribute a portion of the day’s baked goods to children in the settlements.

“The bakers are three-fourths women,” says Jeffrey. “They have an unbelievable amount of dignity. They walk to the bakery. The different nationalities work well together, they harmonize. They are absolutely overjoyed to be able to learn a skill, provide bread for their families, and for thousands of children to whom bread is given free.”

Angella Kushemererwa and Sophie Karungi manage the bakery. They work full-time at the bakery and also have full-time jobs, Angella at the United Nations, and Sophie providing trauma care in refugee settlements. At the end of every day, the bakers make trips deep into the community to hand out bread to children, many malnourished.

“Handing out the bread is an act of the utmost elation when you see the joy on the faces of the children who get the buns,” says Jeffrey. “The other emotional extreme is that the buns always run out before the desperate hands that are endlessly reaching out to get a bun, and that just crushes you. That happens every single time.”

The goal for the bakery is to become self-sustaining eventually, but for now keeping it open costs about $5,000 per month. The Adamâ Foundation plans to install a modern oven in the next few months.

“We know the needs are endless, but we’re hoping to help fund the acquisition of this oven,” says Scott France, president and part-owner of Macrina Bakery.

Jeffrey and Mitch are self-funding an upcoming trip to help get the oven installed. “The wood-burning oven is a weak link,” says Jeffrey. “It’s got four chambers. There’s a 50-degree temperature differential between the chambers. All the trays need to get shifted throughout the bake.”

The new equipment will help the bakery feed more children and will be a solid step toward self-sustainability.

“Some people might say you’re training 24 people, and you’re giving out tens of thousands of buns—this is just wonderful,” says Jeffrey. “And others might say, you better multiply that by a hundred if you’re gonna have any impact at all. Well, none of us is going to fix the world, but I feel like having an opportunity to do one little thing that’s helping these people….” Jeffrey pauses to compose himself. “You can tell half our heart is in Uganda. We know that we’ve changed their lives. They don’t know to what extent they’ve changed ours.”

You can donate directly to ADAMÂ here. All money goes to the bakers and has an incredible impact on the quality of their lives.

Raspberries are a cornerstone of many of our products. Why? Because they’re just so good. Especially when they’re grown locally by small farms in Washington state. We’re excited to partner with the Washington State Red Raspberry Commission to celebrate red raspberries for the month of July!

Raspberries picked at the peak of ripeness have a complex tangy sweetness. With fresh raspberries now available year-round in supermarkets, grown and shipped primarily from Mexico and California, we tend to forget just how good they are fresh off the vine. Sun-warmed, bursting with intense flavor, freshly-picked raspberries are distant cousins of the raspberries grown to ship. Those are bred for durability over taste and picked firm for trucking. Local raspberries are allowed to ripen until they’re nearly ready to fall from the bush. 

The epicenter of Washington state’s raspberry crop is Lynden, a charming, historic town in Whatcom County near the Canadian border. Over 90 percent of Washington raspberries are grown within a 20-mile radius of Lynden. The moderate daytime temperatures, cool evenings, healthy soil, and dry summers produce berries with excellent color and flavor. The tasty crop is so sought after that most of America’s frozen raspberries now come from Washington state.

These aren’t your grandmother’s frozen berries! Recent innovations to the freezing process, known as Individually Quick Frozen (IQF), a state-of-the-art technique where the berries are individually frozen in a wind tunnel at sub-zero temperatures that preserves shape and flavor integrity, have been a game-changer. Unlike the frozen raspberries of the past that made baked goods soggy, these can be substituted for fresh raspberries.  

Leslie Mackie, Macrina’s founder, went to Lynden and visited with local farmers to better understand what makes their raspberries superior. She came away a convert. Leslie says, “I thought the fresh market was best. That’s not necessarily true. Growers pick IQF fruit at the height of the season when it has optimal sweetness, appearance, and juiciness. Because their fruit is grown for flavor, it’s perishable. But the new freezing process allows us to enjoy the great taste all year long.  

The Washington state raspberry harvest begins in July. To celebrate, Lynden will host the annual Northwest Raspberry Festival over the weekend of July 16. Visitors can sample locally harvested raspberries in many forms. Eat them as nature made them or incorporated into foods and beverages of all kinds. 

Over the last year, Leslie has developed four new Macrina products using local berries: Chocolate Raspberry Muffins, Raspberry Oat Scones, Raspberry Lemon Coffee Cake and Raspberry Conserve. We will be featuring them throughout July in honor of our state’s delicious raspberry harvest—and we’re delighted to be able to make them all year long with Washington state raspberries. 

VEGAN RASPBERRY OAT SCONE

Oats add texture and a delicate flavor to these lightly-sweetened vegan scones. Moist raspberries flavor every bite, and a hint of orange zest rounds out the taste.

RASPBERRY LEMON COFFEE CAKE

By taste alone, you’d never know this decadent coffee cake was gluten-free!* Bursting with local raspberries and lemon zest, this sweet cake is finished with raspberry glaze.

VEGAN CHOCOLATE BERRY MUFFIN

These decadent muffins are both vegan and gluten-free.* They’re moist and richly flavored, with hints of cinnamon and vanilla.

RASPBERRY CONSERVES

This small batch fruit spread from founder Leslie Mackie’s Project Barnstorm features local produce and less sugar than your typical jam. Try it on one of our bagels or a slice of toasted bread!

Julia Child’s recipes continue to inspire me. Chocolate mousse was one of Julia’s favorite desserts. Her version is the real deal, with egg yolks going into the base and the whites whipped separately to add the airy texture. These days, for convenience or out of concern for lightly cooked eggs, most mousses are made with whipped cream folded in to add the richness missing from eggs. For a more contemporary take, I’ve adapted Julia’s recipe to create a layered dessert that combines rich chocolate mousse with a lighter complement of date-sweetened tahini mousse.

Printable PDF of this recipe here.

^{Makes 4 servings (6 oz cups)} 

½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 Tbsp espresso or strong coffee
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1½ sticks), room temperature, divided
5 Medjool dates, pitted, divided
½ cup warm water, divided
¼ cup tahini
4 eggs, separated
¾ cup + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar, divided
Pinch salt
¼ cup orange liquor (Grand Marnier, triple sec or Cointreau; or substitute 2 Tbsp water + 2 Tbsp vanilla extract)
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
½ cup heavy cream

Create a double boiler by filling a saucepan with 2 inches of water and bringing it to a simmer, then placing a medium heat-proof bowl over the saucepan (it shouldn’t touch the water). Place the chocolate chips and espresso in the bowl. As the chocolate melts, stir it occasionally to prevent scorching. Once the chocolate is smooth, remove the bowl and add 6 Tbsp of butter, bit by bit. Whisk after each addition until thoroughly combined. Set aside.

Coarsely chop 4 dates. Place them in a bowl and cover with ¼ cup of warm water. Allow them to soften for 5 minutes, then drain and place in a food processor. Add the tahini and remaining ¼ cup of water. Blend to make a smooth paste. Use a spatula to scrape the paste into a medium heat-proof bowl. Set it on top of your saucepan of simmering water. Warm the paste and add the remaining butter, a little at a time, whisking to blend thoroughly. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whip attachment and whip until frothy. Add 1 Tbsp of the sugar and a pinch of salt. Whip to medium-firm peaks. Transfer to another bowl and set aside.

Place the egg yolks, ¾ cup of sugar and the orange liquor into the stand mixer bowl (make sure it’s cleaned from the previous step). Combine the ingredients well. Set the stand mixer bowl over the double boiler (water should still be simmering), whisk the egg mixture constantly, warming the eggs to 120°F (use an instant read thermometer). The eggs will become frothy in about 1 to 2 minutes. Do not let the eggs cook completely or scramble.

Remove the warmed egg mixture and fit the bowl back into the stand mixer. With a whisk attachment, mix at medium speed for 2 to 4 minutes to cool and aerate the egg mixture. The mixture will become lighter in color and texture.

In two additions, divide the egg mixture equally between the chocolate and tahini bowls. After each addition, gently fold to incorporate.

Use the same procedure (two additions each) to fold the whipped egg whites into the chocolate and tahini bowls. Be patient and fold delicately—to create mousse, you want to entirely dissolve the whites into the mixture without deflating the texture.

Divide the chocolate mousse between your four cups, then top each with the tahini mousse. If you’re using 6 oz cups, they should be filled to the brim. Chill for 4 hours.

Sprinkle half the top with cocoa powder and the other half with sesame seeds. Whip the heavy cream and remaining 1 Tbsp sugar by hand until it has soft peaks. Right before serving, top each glass with a dollop of the whipped cream and a slice of the remaining date. Edible flowers add a beautiful touch.

The mousse will keep for 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator. Enjoy!