Inside the bakery at the Apple Works, recipes for everything apple are treasured possessions.
People come to the southern Johnson County institution for the apple dumplings, the Dutch apple bars and apple doughnuts.
Most of all, they come to the Apple Works for what was named the best pie in the Hoosier state: their signature apple pie.
For longtime lead baker Janis Cooper, her time at the Apple Works has been another kind of recipe — for a happy life.
“It’s meant so much to me to work here. We have customers who will actually stick their heads in the kitchen and thank us for the things we bake,” she said.
Cooper retired from the Apple Works on Oct. 31, wrapping up 28 years of service at the orchard and bakery. Throughout her last day, friends and family stopped in to wish her well, share some cake and write how much she has meant to them over the years.
Her contributions over the years have been innumerable and irreplaceable, said Sarah Brown, owner of the Apple Works. But she has also left a solid foundation for which the bakery will continue to thrive for years to come.
“We owe her a debt of gratitude because she’s helped build this business and its reputation,” Brown said. “But she’s also been a tremendous instructor, and has trained the remaining staff very well, who will carry on her devotion to quality.”
Cooper started working at the Apple Works following a family visit nearly 30 years ago. Her oldest son was so enchanted by the orchard that he asked Brown if he could work there part-time, helping with apple picking and other chores.
After dropping him off and picking him up every day, Cooper became familiar with the Apple Works team. Brown finally offered her a job.
“She said, you have to be up here,” she said. “I’ve done a little bit of everything — picked apples, bagged strawberries, baked. The baking has been the longest thing.”
A lifelong baker, Cooper felt right at home in the orchard’s kitchen. But when she started working at the Apple Works, it didn’t have a bakery.
The idea for a kitchen came together in 2005, as an added attraction at the orchard. The following year, a damaging hail storm left the apple crop in dire condition; though the fruit healed on the trees, the appearance of the apples made them unacceptable for selling on their own.
Plans for the kitchen were accelerated, simply as a solution to the damaged crop, Brown said.
“We learned soon that diversification was essential for an apple orchard, because you looking at freezes, hail, high winds, drought, all things that you couldn’t control,” she said. “So diversification with the kitchen has been a huge part of our business.”
Cooper’s efforts were integral to the kitchen getting off the ground.
“If you lined up all of the pies she’s made crust to crust, they’d go all the way to Trafalgar and maybe further,” Brown said. “Twenty-eight years is a lot of time making pies.”
Over the years, Cooper has dabbled in all different kinds of recipes and dishes, from apple cake to fruit oat bars. But nothing has surpassed the apple pies.
The pinnacle for the bakery came in 2012, when the Apple Works’ apple pie was named the top pie in the state by Hoosiers and visitors at the Indiana Office of Tourism Development website.
Made with a mix of four varieties of sweet and tart apples, chopped into bite-sized pieces for the base. Cinnamon and sugar help round out the filling, while a closely guarded secret recipe crust ties it all together.
“They’re the best around,” Cooper said.
With four young grandchildren, Cooper is confident that she’ll find ways to fill her time now that she’s retired. Still, leaving behind the place where she’s been for so long was a difficult decision.
She’ll miss the seven-day-a-week busyness that comes every September and October at the orchard, and seeing all of the families who come out to the Apple Works to make memories, pick out pumpkins and grab a sweet treat for home. The opportunity to see the excitement of local schoolchildren who come out during field trips is also one of her favorite parts of the job.
But Cooper lives just a few miles away, and knows she can always stop in to see her second family whenever she wants.
“It’s a bittersweet day,” she said. “I couldn’t do all of it by myself; I’ve just had an awesome kitchen group that I had to have with me. They’ve done a fantastic job, and they’ll continue that.”
