Aspetuck Valley Apple Barn

I am now officially blowing my cover. For years I have bought frozen apple pies at Aspetuck Valley Orchards and passed them off as homemade. I guess I should be ashamed, but another way of looking at it is that my guests were spared the leather crusted mess that I make on my own. Everyone would rave and I would, with faux humility, take all the credit.

Aspetuck Valley Apple Barn is a picture perfect barn on a picture perfect road in beautiful Easton, CT. The road there (Route 53) passes historic old houses and big swaths of the reservoir. It is beautiful in every season, even New England’s fifth season “mud season” when the dreary snow melts off and people hang buckets on Maple trees for the sap.

You will find “my homemade pies” in the freezer case at the back of the barn. Each pie seems to weigh 5 lbs as they are chock full of fruit. The choices vary with the season, although you will always find plain apple, crumb topped Dutch apple, and a rugged “country” apple. There is also raspberry, apple raspberry, apple cranberry, pumpkin, peach, and fruits of the forest just to name a few.

Aspetuck Valley Apple Barn also sells pound cakes, apple dumplings, and of course fresh picked fruits and berries. Another special and peculiar treat is the selection of amazingly strange jams, jellies and fruit butters. Every farm stand sells strawberry but only at Aspetuck can you buy such oddities as Scoppernong, Mayhaw, or Muscadine jelly to slather on your toast. They also sell my favorite mint jelly packed with the real leaves of the plant and glowing a gorgeous green.