Apple Dumpling Cafe

Give us good pancakes made with farm fresh berries, and a bottle of locally produced maple syrup, and we will spend the rest of our day with smiles on our faces. And that’s just what happened to us at the Apple Dumpling Cafe inside the farm market at the Apple Hills farm.

The pancakes are giants (if you eat a full order of four, your next full order is on the house), but these cakes are also terrific, especially when filled with handfuls of juicy, sweet blueberries grown here at Apple Hills. You can, of course, get yours with apples but, seeing as how their own berries were at that moment ripe and ready for picking, the choice was easy.

Tables are set with squeeze bottles of dark maple syrup from Delavan Farms, about 25 miles to the north in Cincinnatus, and the cakes come with a choice of bacon or juicy sausage patties. A half-order of two is a lot of pancake, and you may want to consider the “Baby Stack” of one, especially if you eyed the trays of freshly made doughnuts as you entered.

Lunch consists of various salads, soups, and sandwiches. One sandwich, in particular, caught our eye: an open-faced grilled apple sandwich, with ham and Swiss, on their homemade eight-grain bread.

Apple Hills, a Broome county farm about a 15-minute drive north of Binghamton, has been owned by the same family since 1848. The Green family began with apples but, today, the sixth generation of family farmers also grows berries, cherries, and vegetables, which you can purchase in the farm market. Inside that market you’ll also find the Apple Dumpling Cafe. If the weather’s nice, we recommend grabbing one of the tables out on the porch, with vistas toward the hills in the distance.

The Cafe is open seven days a week year-round for breakfast and lunch (breakfast only on Sundays).