BALLSTON SPA — “Happiness is still homemade” declares a sign hanging above the entrance to Shelley Smith’s kitchen. It’s a place where family and friends are pitching in together to make pies and where customers come in droves to get a small taste of home.
It was a cold, blustery day and I let the warm and inviting smells of baking apples and brownies draw me in to Smith’s Orchard Bake Shop. It is a small, unassuming building located at the front of their 1,000-acre farm that almost never came to be. In 1999, a fire, started by faulty farm machinery, consumed what is now cold storage for their apples but miraculously stopped just short of the kitchen, which was only framed in at the time.
Smith took it as a good omen that her kitchen was saved and has been pouring her appreciation into every handmade pie ever since. Saying the pies are “handmade” isn’t merely a slogan at the Smith’s Bake Shop. Every pie crust is pulled together by hand and filled individually.
“Everything is hand done like you would do at home if you’d make a pie,” said Smith. A mixer would take away the tender flakey crust she said, an element that helps to make her pies so distinctive.
Between now and Thanksgiving her staff will swell from a handful to a couple dozen people busy in the kitchen baking approximately 7,000 pies. With an oven capacity of 100 pies an hour, they work tirelessly making sure the pies that are a family tradition in the Smith household can become one in homes across the country and overseas as well.
Customers make this possible because they carry them there by hand. The Smith’s do not have a mail order business and rarely ship pies. In fact, preorders stack up so quickly, the pies they actually have on hand for walk-in customers vary among their 20 varieties, with rarely a single pie hanging around for even a 24-hour period.
The farm produces mainly apples, but also pears and plums in their 10 acres of orchards. They used to struggle to find a market for all of their fruit but since they started making pies, the 2,000 bushels of apples grown on the farm are used up easily. Smith’s apple pies are made with a combination of apples, allowing for a wonderful blend of tastes in each bite. The pies are comprised of Cortland, Ida Reds and a hard-to-grow variety named Northern Spies. Perched on trees 40-feet tall and tough to prune, Northern Spies are unreliable producers, offering small golf-ball sized apples one year and grapefruit-sized ones the next, said Walt Smith.
“We still grow them and use them in our pies because they are that good,” said Shelley as Walt nodded in agreement. It was Walt’s parents that started the farm in 1931, and he was born there. Now he spends his retirement there, and among his other farm duties, folds up to 70,000 pie boxes a year.
Diversification is important to the farm he said, and they are proud to have a dairy cow herd of 350 head, pigs that have a main diet of apple peels, antibiotic and hormone-free meats, canned goods and award-winning cider donuts for sale.
“We’re very fair people. We’re here to make a living, not make a killing,” said Shelley. “We have a product that makes people happy, and that’s what we strive to do.”
“In business, you eat your mistakes, but my mistakes taste good,” added Walt.
The cash register is run by Walt’s wife, Lorrie Smith.
“I used to make all my own pies, but I can’t beat these,” she said in between ringing up customers. The Smith’s also have a cash box for those in a rush, but what they don’t accept is credit or debit cards. Whether you’ve come for Shelley’s favorite; the raspberry peach pie, or are stocking up your entire kitchen; cash, checks or Smith’s Orchard gift certificates will ensure you don’t leave empty-handed.
His arms loaded with two full-size pies, two gallons of apple cider and a bag of cider donuts, Mike Podolec came from West Glenville prepared.
“The crust is delicious and the taste of the pie is the best; nice and flakey,” he said.
He first stopped at the farm during their fire sale, back when they first opened, and as a farmer himself, he appreciates bringing home products that both his wife and daughter enjoy. Looking off into the distance he continued.
“Nice hot pies, mmm-hmmm.”
For more information, hours of operation, or directions to the Smith’s Orchard Bake Shop, call (518) 882-6598 or go to http://smithspieshop.com.
