Category Archives: Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook

By Leslie Mackie

Ginger & Molasses Cookies

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ginger_molasses_cookiesCurrently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

These cookies were the second half of my recent cookie bender. Unlike the peanut butter cookies, these cookies looked the worst but tasted the best.

I’m on the fence when it comes to ginger. Most of the time, I find the flavor to be overwhelming. But in these cookies, the ginger is very subtle. Instead of calling for powdered ginger, the recipe uses freshly grated, and I think that is the difference.

The molasses flavor is front and center. This isn’t the time for those weak, light molasseses. I used dark molasses and it was perfect.

This is another pretty standard cookie recipe, except the dough is very, very soft. I let the dough chill in the fridge for a couple of hours and it was still too soft to shape with my hands. Finally, I ended up scooping the dough into balls and freezing the balls until they were hard enough to handle. In the oven, the cookies spread quite a bit, developing a crisp edge with a soft, chewy center.

Did I mention how good these were?

A few days later, I made this recipe again, but meddled a bit (imagine that!). I added some lemon zest and cut down on the amount of leavening. This version was good, but the original is better. I think I’ll stick with that.

Peanut Butter Cookies

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pb_cookieCurrently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

I went on a cookie bender the other day and ended up making two of Mackie’s cookie recipes. The first, this peanut butter cookie, was the better looking but least successful of the two.

This is a basic cookie dough with lots and lots of chunky peanut butter mixed into the dough. The dough is shaped into logs, rolled in chopped peanuts and left to chill in the refrigerator. Once cold, the dough is sliced into rounds and baked.

The finished cookies were very peanutty, but they were dry and crumbly. I really liked the flavor of them, but not the texture. I’m not sure if I overcooked the cookies, but my cookies only cooked for about 15 minutes, even though the recipe said they’d cook for 20 to 25 minutes.

Guess I’ll just have to keep experimenting.

Cornmeal Raspberry Muffins

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cornmeal_raspberry_muffinsCurrently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

Some things, for better or worse, are guaranteed in my baking. First, when making jam or jelly, I will always cut down on the amount of sugar that the recipe calls for. Secondly, my biscuits will spread out instead of rising up. And thirdly, if I see a recipe that calls for cornmeal in a muffin or quick bread, I will make it immediately.

I don’t know why I have such a fascination with cornmeal in sweet goods. I don’t LOVE cornbread, but there’s something about the combination of cornmeal and fruit and sugar that just gets me humming.

Anyway, I knew I was going to make these muffins as soon as I read the title. This is a standard muffin recipe with cornmeal subbed in for some of the flour. In a twist, though, Mackie calls for a cup of diced pineapple, along with a cup of pineapple juice. Once the muffins are baked, the tops are dented and filled with raspberry jam.

Alas, cornmeal + pineapple + raspberry jam did not equal cornbready muffin nirvana.

The muffins tasted like they had cornmeal in them, but they weren’t sweet at all. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of sugar, but I’d probably up that a bit next time. Also, Mackie never tells you what size of muffins these make. The recipe states that it makes 6 to 8 muffins. I have to assume that those are jumbo-size muffins, since I used a standard 12-muffin pan and ended up throwing away almost of a third of my batter. Also, my muffins didn’t rise at all, so there wasn’t anything to dent. I ended up just dolloping each muffin with the jam. And finally, the chunks of pineapple were too big and most of them sank to the bottom of the muffins. Next time, I’ll use crushed pineapple so it spread through the batter a little better.

Corn Chowder with Pink Potatoes & Cream

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corn_chowderCurrently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

When I was a child, my mom used to freeze corn every summer. She’d buy 10 dozen ears and us kids would spend the day husking corn while she boiled it and cut the kernels off the cobs. My favorite job was taking the corncobs and dumping them out in the orchard; I used that time to nibble all the leftover bits of corn that were still on the cobs. One year, I nibbled a little too much and got sick. Although it is a funny family story now, at the time, it wasn’t a very nice experience.

Fortunately, I still love fresh corn (after that experience, I learned to moderate my corn intake), and I was excited to try Mackie’s version of corn chowder which calls for fresh corn instead of frozen.

The soup starts off by cooking an onion and some garlic until soft. Water is added to the pot along with four ears of corn. Once the corn has boiled for a few minutes, the kernels are cut off the cobs and half of the kernels are added back into the water along with the naked cobs. The whole thing simmers for about 30 minutes before the cobs are discarded (yes, I totally nibbled on those before I threw them away). Diced red potatoes, heavy cream and thyme are added to the pot and cooked until the potatoes are tender. At that point, the rest of the kernels are added back to the soup and heated before serving.

The soup was thinner than most corn chowders I’ve tried, but the flavor of the fresh corn was wonderful. I often consider fresh and frozen corn to be interchangeable, but in this case, fresh is the only way to go. For a little pizzaz, I sprinkled some chopped bacon on top of the soup. It added a nice salty flavor and a little bit of texture. You could easily leave this off for a vegetarian version, and it would still be delicious.

Guatemalan Hot Chocolate Bread

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choc_breadCurrently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

Some day I will have my own bakery, and when I do, I want it to just like Seattle’s Macrina Bakery. I haven’t actually ever been there, but based on the cookbook, which is based on the recipes that the bakery uses, I think I’d fall in love with the place and never leave.

Hmmm. Maybe it is a good thing I haven’t been there . . .

The first recipe that caught my eye was this chocolate yeast bread. Chocolate. Yeast. Bread. I was smitten. The recipe was pretty easy, and I had all the ingredients on hand. It is a basic enriched yeast dough that has some cocoa powder added to it. This version also adds chopped almonds and chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used chocolate chips).

The only problem I had with the recipe is that I wasn’t sure what the kneaded dough was supposed to look like. Mackie says the dough will look satiny and stringy, and mine was, but it was also more like a cake batter then a bread dough. It wasn’t very cohesive, and I ended up adding almost another cup of flour to the dough before it started balling up and acting like a normal bread dough. At this point, I could knead it by hand, although it was still pretty sticky.

Warm from the oven, this bread was very, very good. As it cooled down, however, it became slightly dry, so I may have added too much flour (or overbaked the bread). I guess I’ll just have to try this recipe again. Darn.