Produce and maple products are on display at the front of the Meadow Ledge Farm store in Loudon, but the aroma of cider doughnuts is what pulls customers to the back.
The store opens at 9 a.m., and every day during the fall season the employees are met by customers waiting eagerly for their fabled doughnuts.
“When we open the doors in the morning, we have to have our act together,” said store manager Louie Houle. “As soon as we open the door, a line files through. That line will stay there during our busy season until 5:30 or 6 at night.”
These doughnuts draw customers from across the state, and were recently ranked No. 1 on a USA Today list of the top-10 cider doughnuts in New Hampshire. The list was derived from 20 nominees chosen by a panel of food experts, and the top-10 were determined by popular vote. Chichester Country Store came in at No. 8, and Gould Hill Farm in Contoocook was No. 9.
The doughnuts at Meadow Ledge Farm are made fresh throughout the day, hot on delivery out of the fryer and into a bag. Some will wait 40 minutes for one doughnut, while others pick up one or two dozen to bring to work or back home to their family.
They are served plain and crispy on the outside, which allows the cider to shine through from within – although customers with a sweet tooth can buy a little cup of cinnamon sugar for dunking, but it’s hardly necessary. It’s a magical mix of texture and taste, said Shawn Roberts, 37, who grew up on the farm and started making doughnuts when he was 11 years old.
“I’ll take a doughnut off of the machine, break it open, look at it, and bite into it to make sure it’s got the real fluffy, buttery flavor that it’s supposed to have,” he said. “And then I’ll throw it out, and people go nuts when they see me throw it into the trash.”
Roberts has had plenty of these doughnuts in his time, and one bite is all he needs to decide if the quality is up to snuff.
“I want to make sure they are perfect every time,” he said.
That consistency brings people back for more.
Lee-Ann Downs from Concord started visiting the farm with her grandparents when she was 7 years old. Now, Downs is 19 and can drive there herself.
“If I have money in my pocket and they’re making doughnuts, I’m coming here,” she said, smiling as Friday’s doughnut-maker, Stephanie Howland, handed her a bag with a couple of bonus mini-doughnuts that snuck out of the fryer.
While the doughnuts are the destination for some, for others they are a tantalizing treat that beckons while they shop for fruits and vegetables.
“I’m always tempted,” said George Sillars, who was heading for the checkout counter. “It’s a problem when I walk by.”
Ernie Roberts, Shawn’s father, bought the farm in 1994. The previous owners also made cider doughnuts, and Shawn said their recipe blends parts of the old one as well as one developed by his grandmother, Alice Roberts, who was a baker and cake decorator.
“We played with that and kind of merged them together,” he said. “It makes you proud. You’re always thrilled when something is successful, and we work hard to make the doughnuts.”
The weekend welcomes the first full day of Autumn, and the demand for fall flavors is already in full force. The craze for pumpkin brews and cider treats has only increased in recent years, and the push by the state Department of Agriculture to shop at local producers have given farms such as Meadow Ledge a small boost.
But simple word-of-mouth has given Meadow Ledge all of the business it can handle for the space and equipment it currently has.
“We do some advertising, but very minimal,” said Ernie Roberts, the owner. “We don’t want to sound arrogant, but word of mouth seems to work better for us.”
For years, the doughnut operation ran on four frying machines. About two years ago, the farm purchased another machine from Wisconsin, a big one that can pump out about 160 dozen doughnuts in an hour, faster than Shawn Roberts and his crew could keep up with.
And that machine has a name: Lucy.
“It’s like the I Love Lucy episode with the chocolate factory,” Shawn Roberts said. “We had doughnuts coming out everywhere and could not keep up with it.”
The store expanded about five years ago, pushing the rear wall where the doughnut fryers are back by about 20 feet for more space.
The farm begins making doughnuts on the weekends in June, but it is now entering its busiest season and will be making them every day until the end of October. Only four people on staff know the exact mix, which includes cider made from apples picked from the orchard outside.
“Mixing is tricky, and there’s only a few people who do it,” Shawn said. “You’ve got to get it all right. The formula has to be perfect.”
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3321, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)