Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR Leslie Mackies Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook
From the day it opened, Leslie Mackies Macrina Bakery & Cafe has been a spot of warmth, friendship, and great food in Seattle. Now, with this treasure of a book, anyone not lucky enough to live near Leslies legendarily good breads and homey cakes, her cant-get-enough-of-them tarts and pies, and her terrific sandwiches, can savor her specialties at home. All our favorites are here in recipes that are tremendously appealing and easy to follow. What a treat.
DORIE GREEN SPAN, author of Paris Sweets: Great Recipes from the Citys Best Pastry Shops
Leslie Mackies sparkle, raw energy, talent, humor, and integrity combine to not only produce one of Americas greatest bakers and pastry cooks, but someone who cooks as well as any chef today. When I picked up LeslieMackies Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook, there was that same sparkle, energy, and inspiration! It is wonderful. I did peek to make sure the steamed chocolate pudding cake was there... It WAS!
LYDIA SHIRE, chef and co-owner, Locke- Ober restaurant in Boston
Leslie Mackie has long been one of the professional bakers I most admire in the whole country. Everything she prepares is imbued with honesty, freshness, flavor, and love, and I cant resist stopping by Macrina Bakery & Cafe every time I am in Seattle. Now were lucky enough to have her inspired recipes to use at home, and everyones home baking skills will risejust like Leslies wonderful doughs!
NICK MALGIERI, author of Perfect Cakes and Chocolate
I have known Leslie Mackie for over twenty-five years, and after reading her book, I can say it embraces what she does so well with passion, simplicity, and excellence. She is a true master, and this book represents years of work that can now be brought into any aspiring bakers home or professional kitchen.
CORY SCHREIBER, author of Wildwood: Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest
Leslie Mackie has all the ingredients of a bakers baker: a natural understanding of the crafts of bread baking, pastry making, and cooking; a thoughtful and curious mind; and a big heart. I know this is a lot to read into a loaf of bread or a tart or a crostoni, but its all there. And in these recipes Leslies spirit shines through. You want to eat what she makes. You want to make what she makes. And with this book you canand you should.
NOEL COMESS, owner of Tom Cat Bakery in New York City
To Saint Macrina the Younger
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
The release of the first edition of this book, in the fall of 2003, coincided with Macrinas tenth anniversary, and I was thrilled with the response it received. Our loyal customers carried the book into their homes and started baking. Many came into the cafes grinning from ear to ear, eager to share their tales of success or to ask for advice. It was a pleasure to hear their stories and to know that the recipes were finding new life.
In producing this second edition, I am very happy to be able to add a chapter containing new recipes our customers have been asking for. Ive also provided recipes for our updated, trans fat-free pie dough and a gluten-free bread that weve developed. The beautiful new cover features one of our most-requested recipesthe elegant Macrinas Tuxedo Cake. I hope what you find inside this book brings many hours of happiness to your kitchen and your table. Enjoy.
FOREWORD
Whenever I come home from a trip to Seattle, I am likely to dream that a branch of Leslie Mackies Macrina Bakery & Cafe has opened in my neighborhood. I wake up ready to leap out of bed and walk around the corner. I think of the loaves of raisin bread and ciabatta that are waiting, the house bread I want to tuck under my arm and take home. At some point, of course, reality reasserts itself, and I am inevitably crestfallen when the moment of truth arrives. It is hard to accept that I have to do without the bread puddings, fougasse, and ginger pear upside-down cakes that line the shelves and counters of Cafe Macrina, and it doesnt really seem fair that those delicious tastes are only available in my memory. Yes, that moment of realization has always been a blow, but I am happy to say that consolation has now arrived in the form of Leslies new book, which makes it possible to re -create Macrina Bakery & Cafe specialties and bring their sparkling tastes and flavors into my life.
I cant overstate my enthusiasm for Leslie Mackies Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook. Leslies passion for bread and her commitment to preparing soul-satisfying food shines out from every page. When I first met her, Leslie was preparing for her bread pilgrimage to Italy, and I was immediately impressed by her knowledge, her passion, and her desire to learn everything she could from masters of bread baking. Her approach to finding the local and regional specialties all over the country paralleled my own a few years before, and I was thrilled to think that she was planning to open a bakery devoted to recipes learned from those inspired artisans. Leslies adventurous spirit carried her all over the peninsula. She absorbed more than the formulas and techniques she saw and brought home with her not only memories of exceptional tastes but a commitment to reproducing them with fresh, organic, local, and seasonal ingredients.
Little did she know when she enlisted friends, local artisans, and artists to help build her neighborhood bakery that she would soon expand from being a bakery with breads, three kinds of tarts, two kinds of cookies, and a single biscotto to baking multiples of all those and then to becoming a community restaurant offering delicious dishes that are meant to be eaten with the breads that are still at the heart of her vision.
Leslies passion translates directly into her easy-to-follow recipes. They are straightforward and clear, so full of encouragement and good-natured observations that she moves us easily through the baking process. We know what the dough should look and feel like, and we are reassured at every step. As I read my way through the book, I found it almost impossible not to reach for flour, sugar, and eggs, not to pull down bowls and measuring spoons and cups and get to work. My copy bristles with stick-it notes marking the numerous alluring possibilities that I want to bake and taste for myself. I can almost see the bubbling starters, smell the sweet breads, feel the heat and steam in the air as breads, summer berry muffins, and coffee cakes come out of the ovens. Macrina Bakery & Cafe has made a place for itself in Seattles heart. Leslies gifts to her neighborhood and the larger community are well known. She extends the idea of family by embracing the whole neighborhood and city itself in the warm home-like ambiance she has created. No one who has ever been there will be surprised that Leslie thinks of the bakers as family or that she has persuaded her own mother to come into Macrinas kitchen, roll up her sleeves, and show the staff how to make the American classic sweets that Leslie grew up eating. In preserving the recipes of her own childhood and other bakers traditions, in making and preserving the breads of Italian bakers and the classic tastes of American desserts, Leslie has given us all a special gift. With this book she is preserving important traditions and encouraging the next generations to participate in the magic of baking. When she went to her three - year-old daughters preschool, I could feel the excitement of the children plunging into the bread-making process, their little fists pounding the dough... like a drum roll, and then heard that drum roll grow louder and louder in appreciation of Leslies dedication and talents. Brava Leslie, brava again and again.
