The Makers: Alexandra’s Macarons Pops Up Around Seattle

The Makers is a new column on Seattlemag.com that explores different Seattle creatives and their crafts. These artists live to design, connect and create.

Alexandra Greenwald has been obsessed with pastries since she was 12 years old, when she would ogle the éclairs and macarons her aunt would bring back from Paris.

Photo Credit: Sparkfly photography

Later, when she attended culinary school at the Florida Culinary Institute in West Palm Beach, the pastries came calling again. Greenwald focused on macaron recipes, refining her craft with each whisk and eventually landed gigs as a seasonal chef at a restaurant in the Hamptons, then (when she moved to the West Coast) at various restaurants around Seattle, including Macrina Bakery. Her stint as pastry chef on a luxury, Ballard-based yacht planted the seedlings for her eponymous macaron business.

“Sometimes I would give [macarons] away when passengers would disembark and they were always a huge hit,” she says.

Once on dry land, she jumped into planning mode and stumbled across Gertrude—a bright pink VW bus that was in pristine condition and as luck would have it, for sale. “There were a ton of people making offers on her… but the owner called me and said, ‘I feel like you should have her.'”

Greenwald transformed Gertrude into a pop-up shop out of which she would sell her French confections–more than 100 different kinds, including Earl grey, chocolate espresso and the famed lavender salted caramel–she makes in her Ballard kitchen. There’s even a new macaron each week, often inspired by seasonal flavors and her customers’ favorite combinations. (We have word that Greenwald has cooked up a savory Seattle-inspired flavor, but for now, she’s remaining mum on further details.)

Photo Credit: Sparkfly photography

 Last December, Greenwald and Gertrude were in an accident. The macaron maker launched a Kickstarter and later a Gofundme campaign to help pay for repairs to her beloved hot pink bus, which is scheduled to be up and running again in July (a full-on welcome back bash is planned for the fixed-up rig).

In the meantime, you’ll find her (sans Gertrude) selling macarons at local coffee houses and businesses, such as West Elm in South Lake Union, multiple locations of Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Kakao Chocolate and Coffee in SLU and Ballard’s Miro Tea. Her online store is expected to launch sometime this July and will include an option to join the macaron club (price TBD), which entitles members to two boxes of seasonal flavors per month picked up from her Ballard kitchen.

Photo Credit: Sparkfly photography

For more information on Alexandra’s Macarons and to get the skinny on future locations where she and Gertrude will be setting up shop weekly, visit: alexandrasmacarons.com. Or follow her on instagram.