QUESTION: What work session features mounds of specially made dough that volunteers transform into 13,000-plus classic cookies?

ANSWER: It’s called a “Baking Night” that includes proud parishioners at Church of the Annunciation on Oaklawn Avenue who on just one night perform a number of required steps to make items like Koulourakia for the 32nd Annual Cranston Greek Festival.

In short, long before the highly-popular event opens on Sept. 8, dozens of volunteers – mostly women – spend hour-upon-hour inside the Rev. Peter G. Mihailides Center to make an extraordinary amount of 40,000 pieces of pastry for the three-day Festival that is expected to attract 25,000-plus during its three-day stay that will run through Sept. 10.

During a recent “Baking Night,” Koula Rougos – who has been making pastry for the Greek Orthodox parishes highly-acclaimed fun and food fest since 1991 – was even overwhelmed with the number of people who teamed up to make Koulourakia, on of 10 items that will be featured at the popular Pastry Shoppe during the upcoming Cranston Greek Festival.

“This is the most people we’ve ever had,” Rougos, who shares the Festival’s Pastry Committee Co-Chairmanship with her friend Roula Proyous, offered. “By the time we finish (tonight) we will have made 13,000 cookies.”

Make that Koulourakia, which Rougos – who performs the first of several required steps which is obviously making the dough – explained is a traditional crispy coffee cookie made one-by-one by dozens of volunteers and feature only the finest ingredients like real butter, etc.

“We do not use any substitutes of any kind for our pastry,” Rougos wanted it known. “Ever piece of pastry is made by hand and everything that will be on sale at the Pastry Shoppe will have been made by our volunteers.”

Once the dough is made, some four dozen ladies sit at a long table rolling and shaping each and very cookie before its brushed with butter and placed on huge trays that men like Jim Harritos and Gus Rougos cook in the huge, professional ovens inside the parish center.

Later, many of those same people and young parishioners like the Grammas twins – Eleni and Nicole who star in track and field at Rhode Island College – will be back at the parish center, packaging pastry like Kourambiedes (butter cookies blanketed with confectionary sugar) and Melomakarona (also known as Finakia), honey cookies with fragrant species, Greek honey syrup and sprinkled walnuts.

The sweet stuff that will be featured Sept. 8-10 at the Cranston Greek Festival will be baklava, galaktoboureko, diples, karydopita, kataifi, koulourakia, kourambiedes, melomakarona, rizogalo and macaroons.

When asked that piece of pastry has been the most popular through the years, Rougos smiled then softly said: “We sell out every year!”

She did admit, though, that perhaps Baklava is the number one seller while the Koulourakia ranks second and as the long-serving and highly-dedicated volunteer emphasized, “People just can’t seem to get enough of our rice pudding.”

As noted, the Cranston Greek Festival will run from Sept. 8-10 on the Annunciation grounds and will be held rain or shine under huge tents. Guests will also be able to enjoy Greek food including roast lamb, chicken, souvlaki, pastitsio, spanakopita [spinach pie] and as Publicity Chairman Paul Pliakas says “Rhode Island’s best gyros.”

Festival hours are: Friday, Sept. 8-5 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, Sept; Sept. 9-12 noon to 10 p.m.; Sunday-Sept. 10-12 noon to 9 p.m. Admission is free as is the shuttle bus service that will run from the Cranston High School West Parking lot right onto the Festival grounds.

This year’s Cranston Greek Festival will also feature a Grand Prize Cash raffle for $5,000 and a variety of entertainment and specialty booths. No pets are allowed, however, service animals are permitted.