“My hand was so sore I couldn’t throw my bowling ball,” said club member Michele Fishnick.

After about five years the order total quickly jumped to 500 and changes had to be made. The group contacted the school, which allowed them to use the school kitchen because it was work that was benefiting the community. With the commercial mixers and equipment, a group that numbers about 12 can get them all made in a day. It’s now a fine-tuned process that goes from mixing to forming to weighing to coating to wrapping to bagging.

Hertrampf has been helping with the cheese balls since she came to work for the school in 2006.

“Then I was sworn to secrecy about the recipe,” she said.

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Indeed, the recipe is a secret. The group figures if everyone knows, they won’t buy the cheese balls. The Capers will, however, make this much public: It takes 350 pounds of cheddar, 350 pounds of cream cheese, 30 pounds of pecans and “two big bread bags” of parsley.

Seasonings? No comment.

“This is not a big-deal recipe,” Esser said. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something different about this that we all love.”