the smedley log - suburban scrawl

Fruitless search terms: Styer Orchard, etc.

I was shuffling through recent keywords used to land on thesmedleylog.com over the past couple weeks, and I noticed that 29 out of the first 100 on the list were references to some variation of Styer Orchard (or Styer’s, or Styers Orchard, etc.), or otherwise referred to apple cider doughnuts.

I have written about both on this site, but due to the unfriendly search layout of my old blogging format (parts of April, 2005, and prior), I sense that people have lost patience with finding their terms. So I’m here to help.

Below are a couple annotated links to posts that reference the Market at Styer Orchard or the historic Bucks County farming family themselves (vaguely though):

• The history of the big apple: A basic gathering of recollections having to do with Styer Orchards, including a brief history, the origins of the large inorganic apple that sits in front of the store, and how it came to be a part of the local open space program.
• Apple cider doughnuts on a cold November night: A recollection from last November about the apple cider doughnuts that are superior to any other apple cider doughnuts I’ve ever tasted, and my experience sharing them with some freezing Turnpike workers on strike on my way home from work.

And since so many web travelers end up here having searched for Styer Orchard, I figure I might as well add a couple details for those looking for it in real life. First, I should probably clarify that there are two different enterprises associated with Styer Orchard. One is a working farm (visit its website). The other is the Market at Styer’s Orchard. It’s details are below:

Address:
1125 Woodbourne Road
Langhorne, PA 19047 (map)

(Oh, and I just noticed the irony of the title of this post…)

The Styers are distant relatives of mine.

Really—I guess that makes some sense, especially given the Quaker roots in your family; they were an anchor in the local Quaker community. I grew up next door to one of the younger generations of the family. Used to spend summers riding our bikes through the apple orchard behind the house. Lots of fun there…

What are apple cider doughnuts? I love both doughnuts and apple cider…and since my brain is food-wired (within two seconds started to dream of apple fritters and such, within three seconds mouth started to water) and craving-oriented I think it needs to try these doughnuts you speak of.

They sound yummy…and I now really want to find them!

Charles Stoke Williams + Ruth Styer
Earl Williams + Lois Ruth Conard
David Montgomery Williams + Elizabeth Ann Moore
Eric David Williams (me)

Funky,

The name Ruth Styer rings a bell, though she’s obviously not someone of recent generations. I might have heard several of the ancestral names during my childhood visits through the farm, when we would see Pops and he would tell us stories about everything from his childhood to the early days of the farm itself.

Luna,

Apple cider doughnuts are simply doughnuts flavored with apple cider. They’re quite good (as I’ve attested in the aforementioned post about them), and though there are other places that claim to sell them, Styer’s is the only place I’ve found so far where they taste quite right to me (apparently there are different recipes).