When pulling into the parking lot behind the Williamsburg General Store on Route 9, it’s hard not to catch a whiff of the warm apple cinnamon pastries cooling on the other side of the open window.
At the crack of dawn each morning, head baker Christine Gilbert is busy sliding trays of them in and out of the oven.
Called Wrapples, they are a spin-off of the classic American apple pie, but more compact, handheld, and, deceptively, a little bit more messy.
While the general store sells an assortment of everything from kitchen gadgets to greeting cards, these little pastries are the best seller.
It’s a famous staple of this classic New England country store, a favorite snack for tourists looking for a pit stop between Boston and the Berkshires, but also for locals who tend to pop in to grab a Wrapple before heading to work in the morning.
“Some people come here specifically just for these,” Gilbert said as she took a break from her baking one recent morning. “It’s one of our big things that we do in the fall.”
The pastries are named for the heaping mound of baked apples, wrapped inside a thick layer of piecrust. Storeowner Carol Majercik of Westampton coined the name and came up with the recipe more than 30 years ago. Her family also owns the Huntington Country Store on Route 112 in Huntington, where you can get Wrapples, too.
The palm-size pies, made with apples from a nearby orchard, are drizzled with vanilla icing when they come out of the oven.
“If you can catch them when they are really warm, that’s when they are really yummy,” Gilbert said.
One of them can be a filling breakfast, with a cup of coffee or a tall glass of milk. Or if you indulge later in the day, a large scoop of vanilla ice cream is a tasty topping.
Gilbert, 64, started baking in this kitchen part-time 23 years ago to help pay for her daughter’s college expenses, but got hooked on the work and soon moved to full time.
“It’s a satisfying job because it makes everybody happy,” she said. “It’s just nice to have a nice product come out.”
On most days, Gilbert is scurrying around the kitchen in a flour-dusted apron turning out dozens of Wrapples, along with brownies, specialty cheese breads and pies — the store’s second biggest seller.
She says it has never been easy for her to keep up with the Wrapple demand; they fly off the shelves. But she keeps baking them all morning, every morning until the local apples run out. That typically happens around June, Gilbert said, but this year, a poor apple crop may put an end to Wrapple-baking sooner. In that case, she is girded for customer complaints: “People go bonkers when there are no Wrapples,” she said.
For those who want to try making them at home, Gilbert says have at it.
The recipe is simple. “There is no secret,” she said.
Using your favorite pie-crust recipe, make enough dough for three double crust pies.
For the filling:
8 cups of apple slices
1 cup of cinnamon sugar
Roll out the 3-pound ball of pie dough into a flat 36 by 13-inch square. Place the apple slices in the center.
Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over them before rolling the apples up in what looks like an enormous burrito. Dust the top with cinnamon.
Use a measuring stick to portion out each 3-inch Wrapple and slice them up. Brush each with an egg wash (beaten eggs mixed with some milk or water) makes the crust a little crispier.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.
For the icing:
Boil down 4 cups of sugar with a quarter cup of water and a teaspoon of vanilla. Add more water gradually if needed to get the right consistency.
“That’s it — Viola —we have Wrapples,” Gilbert said.
She points out that there is no nutmeg in this recipe, only straight cinnamon sugar, which adds a bit of sweetness to the apples.
While making them is easy, eating them is messy.
Your fingers will be coated in sticky goo soon after the first bite, so arm yourself with napkins.
Williamsburg General Store customers who intend to purchase them as take-out, usually don’t make it through the parking lot without polishing them off, Gilbert said. So, for those who want to sit down and enjoy them there are a few seats inside. There are also tables outdoors where you can munch your Wrapple, an experience enhanced this time of year by the surrounding red and orange foliage show.
Thirty years after the store served its first Wrapple, Majercik’s daughter, Heather Majercik is now running the business and carrying on the tradition of its signature pastry.
“We sell a million Wrapples and we hope to continue,” she said. “People love apples.”
Lisa Spear can be reached at Lspear@gazettenet.com.