Apple pie season at the Brooktondale Community Center, festival Oct. 19

The Brooktondale Apple Festival, which started in 1964, takes place Saturday, Oct. 19, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is the major fundraiser for the Brooktondale Community Center on Valley Road, a 501(c)3 organization that serves the town of Caroline and the wider region.

Visitors to the festival can expect a large vendor fair, live music, a concession stand, and crafts and other activities for the whole family, but one of the biggest draws to the festival is its sale of hundreds of homemade apple pies with crust made from scratch.

“It’s a great recipe,” said Lucy Gagliardo, of Brooktondale, pie bee coordinator and crust maker.

“It’s a sweet, generous pie,” said Mary Weiss of Brooktondale.

Gagliardo has been making pies with the same crust recipe since she moved to town in 1985. For years she made the dough by hand, but she now makes two batches at a time with a trusty professional-grade mixer.

Two secrets to the pie crust recipe, which originally came from Brooktondale resident Molly Adams: an egg and apple cider vinegar.

On a recent afternoon at the Brooktondale Community Center, about a dozen volunteers were busy making a dent in their 400-pie goal.

“Dawn and Laura and Nancy are masters at rolling the dough,” Gagliardo said.

“That’s really important. Then there are people who just want to peel, and some who just want to mix, and then there’s me in my own world back there,” she said, pointing to the kitchen.

Why does Weiss, who has made pies for the festival for nearly 20 years, continue with the annual tradition?

“It’s neighborly,” Weiss said. “You can chat it up while you’re mixing sugar, flour and cinnamon … So it’s the smell of the spices, the seasonal task of making pies.”

They always use the Cortland variety of apples.

“They have a tang,” Weiss said. “They’re not too sweet.” Gagliardo said they also tend to be ripe at the right time.

“It’s an apple that’s ready when we need it,” she said.

The group used to make the pies ahead of time, freeze them, and bake them the day before the festival. For the last few years, they have sold them frozen instead. Each pie is $15.

“It’s actually very nice when you’re baking the pie at home, and it smells so great,” Gagliardo said. Each pie comes with baking instructions.

Visitors to the festival can also purchase frozen apple crisp and gluten-free pies, which are made by the volunteers as well. 

The amount of time it takes to make all the pies greatly depends on the number of volunteers. On one recent day they had five people baking and made 34 pies.

But with the help of groups like Open Door English, which has been volunteering for several years now, the process goes much faster. Because a good percentage of the students are adults, many of them already have a lot of experience in the kitchen. “They are really helpful and a lot of fun,” Gagliardo said.

They also have a group of Ithaca College students that regularly volunteers.

“They’re so creative and chatty,” Gagliardo said. “Some don’t know anything about baking, but they get really into it.”

It was estimated that afternoon that around 200 pies had been made total so far this year, with several future pie bees planned to help the volunteers reach their goal of 400. 

Upcoming pie bees, which all members of the public are encouraged to attend, are Oct. 9 from 1 to 5 p.m., Oct. 10 from 3 to 6 p.m., Oct. 12 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Oct. 13 from 2 to 7 p.m. at the community center, located at 522-526 Valley Road.

Last year it was estimated about 2,000 people attended the festival. Much of the event’s expansion since the COVID-19 pandemic is due to it being held outdoors, when in years past it was always inside.

“I think it just got to the point where it was too crowded,” Nancy Hall, co-chair of the Brooktondale Community Center Board of Directors. 

The event is also where the community center raffles off a handmade quilt. Tickets are sold throughout the summer at the farmers market, which is another of the many events hosted by the community center.

There is also a silent auction and a snack bar with slices of fresh baked apple pie and crisp as well as chili, veggie chili, corn chowder and pulled pork.

Overall, the festival raises about $10,000. All the proceeds go toward the community center, which serves the community year-round with its annual Halloween party, nine-week summer camp, and other special events such as dances and game nights.

The community center hosts Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and is rented by other groups for special events. The building is as old as the festival, and much of the proceeds from the festival are put toward its upkeep.

There is also a 5K run on the day of the festival, which also raises money for the community center.

For more information about how to volunteer, sign up as a vendor or register for the 5K, visit brooktondalecc.org/apple-festival-5k.