My Apple Cinnamon Pie with Lattice Crust is an easy apple pie recipe made with a homemade apple pie filling spiced with a homemade apple pie spice blend and wrapped in a flaky crust. This is such a great apple pie recipe that it almost wrapped me in a lawsuit with a former manager of mine. Long story short, the manager of an ice cream shop I worked at believed this (and all of my pie recipes) belonged to him and ended up losing all of them when I left to join the Army. Pastry chefs are petty, and he found out the hard way. But, now you can have the best apple pie recipe he always wanted for free.

*This recipe was originally published in November 2018. I’ve updated the article, the images and added weight measurements to the recipe.*

What Is Apple Cinnamon Pie?

Apples come from Central Asia. English settlers brought their pie dough crusts to the New World, and, somehow, apple pies became known as the national dessert of the United States. Colonization at its finest, folks.

However, in the broader sense, pies date back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Pies are just foodstuffs that are baked inside of a pastry. The Greeks and Romans have been doing that long before the US was a twinkle in King George’s money-grabbing eye. However, the pies we are most familiar with did begin in England. During the Middle Ages, most pies were savory and mincemeat pies.

Here, though, we as a nation have perfected the sweet pie. Cherry, pumpkin, and sweet potato pies are American, but none more so than apple.

What Are The Ingredients In An Apple Cinnamon Pie?

The ingredients you need for a cinnamon apple pie are brown sugar, tart apples, pie dough, unsalted butter, cornstarch, apple pie spice blend (or cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger), kosher salt, lemon juice, and water.

Additionally, you need a 9 or 10-inch pie pan. For a deep dish apple pie, use the 9-inch pie pan. I recommend using a metal pie tin for baking pies because they conduct heat more evenly, but ceramic or glass (or aluminum if you plan to freeze it) will also work. You also need a rolling pin, a sharp pizza cutter (or pastry wheel), and a 4-quart pot.

What Are The Best Apples for Pie-Making?

Granny Smith apples are the best apples for pie-making. They have a firm, tart flesh that gives the classic flavor contrast to this homemade filling. Alternative apples for pie-making are Braeburn, Honey Crisp, Pink Lady, or Jonagold. They are the sweetest I would use in this recipe, though.

Avoid making your cinnamon apple pie filling with Golden Delicious, McIntosh, or Red Delicious Apples. These apple varieties break down a bit too much for the baking time of this pie, which will cause the filling to be nothing more than mushy apples. They are also too sweet for this recipe. Even if you are a fan of super-sweet desserts, I wouldn’t recommend using them in this recipe because the final product will be cloyingly sweet.

Use a vegetable peeler or a sharp paring knife to peel the apples. I make my apple cinnamon pie with 9 large apples because I prefer a tall pie, but you can reduce it to 8. Cut the apples into quarters, then cut the quarters into 1/8-inch thick slices.

What Spices Are In The Apple Cinnamon Pie Filling?

An Apple Pie Spice Blend is the best way to add flavor to your apple pie filling.

Melt the first quantity of unsalted butter over medium-high heat in a wide, shallow pan.

Add the sliced apples and sauté them in the butter for 2 1/2 minutes. Sprinkle in the apple pie spice blend and kosher salt. You can also omit the apple pie spice and use individual spices, like ground cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, instead. I prefer my spice blend because it contains more cinnamon, as well as allspice, cardamom, cloves, ginger, mace, and nutmeg.

Add the lemon juice after stirring the spice blend and salt into the apple mixture.

Does Brown Sugar Taste Better Than White In Apple Pies?

The molasses flavor of brown sugar adds caramel flavor to apple pie, so it tastes much better than plain white sugar.

Add the brown sugar to the pot once steam begins rising from the spiced apples. Reduce the heat to medium, then stir the sugar into the apples. Stir to encourage the sugar crystals to melt and combine with the apple and lemon juices. Cook the apples for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently. Make the cornstarch slurry, which will thicken the filling while you wait for the syrup to develop.

How Is The Filling Thickened?

Add the cornstarch to a small mixing bowl. Whisk in a little water until the mixture is smooth, runny, and resembles milk. This is a slurry.

A slurry thickens the cinnamon apple pie filling. Without it, the apples will fall to hell when you slice your pie, and the liquid will make the bottom crust soggy. You don’t have to use water to make the slurry. You can use apple cider, apple juice, or even more lemon juice (but that would make it pretty tart). Avoid using liquids like milk or cream to make a slurry. They’ll curdle instead of creating a smooth, glossy glaze.

Soon, a puddle of sugar liquid will form in the bottom of the pot of apples and begin to simmer. Use your spoon to create a well in the middle of the apples. Pour the cornstarch slurry into the center of that well, stirring constantly. Use your spoon to stir the apples into the thickened mixture that develops in the pot.

Within a minute or two, the slurry will thicken the pan’s juices. Use your spoon to fold the apples into the glaze to ensure they are fully coated. Continue cooking and stirring the apples until the glaze looks thick; think corn syrup.

How Does Pre-Cooking The Apples Make A Better Pie?

Par-cooking apples before baking the pie creates a thick glaze. We aren’t able to do that unless we heat the cornstarch slurry to the boiling point. We could do it the old-school way and toss our apples and spices in flour in a large mixing bowl, but that’s a hit-or-miss technique. If you have the sort of luck I do, you’ll get super dry apples and end up with a filling that tastes like flour. Instead, this glaze ensures we have the best filling for our apple cinnamon pie.

Briefly cooking the apples before adding them to the pie crust also reduces the pie’s baking time. Adding raw apples to the pie crust adds a half-hour to our baking time.

Add the remaining butter to the apples in the pot once the glaze forms. This technique of finishing sauces or dishes with pats of butter is called mounting. It produces a velvety sauce with minimal effort. Just use your spoon to rapidly stir the butter into the hot glaze. As the filling cools, this butter will also keep the filling from looking crusty.

Can I Fill The Pie Dough Right Away?

It’s best to allow your apple filling (or any cooked filling) to cool completely and as quickly as possible. The latter is because you don’t want the filling to set up too much before it goes into the pie. The former is because you don’t want to begin softening the butter in your pie dough. The residual heat from freshly cooked fillings causes buttery pie crusts to melt. That results in a soggy, gummy bottom crust.

Set the pan filled with the apple cinnamon filling into an ice bath in a large bowl to cool the filling quickly. The ice water should reach halfway up the sides of the apple filling pan. Stirring the filling frequently to redistribute some heat helps it cool faster. Proceed with filling the pie shell once the filling reaches room temperature.

Can I Make The Apple Cinnamon Filling Ahead?

You can make the apple cinnamon pie filling up to two days ahead and store it in a covered container in the fridge. The cold air will firm the butter in the filling, so you must stir it well before using it.

Can I Freeze The Filling?

To freeze apple cinnamon pie filling:

Allow the pie filling to cool completely.
Transfer it to a freezer-safe container and freeze it for up to two months.
Thaw the filling overnight in the fridge, then stir it well before filling the pie dough with it.

What Kind Of Dough Do I Need For This Apple Cinnamon Pie?

My Flaky Pie Dough is the best pie dough to use for apple cinnamon pie. You can also use a store-bought crust for this recipe.

Roll out your disc of pie dough into a 13-inch circle on a lightly floured surface. If baking in a 10-inch pan, roll it out to 14-inches. Make sure the circle of pie dough is rolled evenly and fairly thin. It shouldn’t be any thicker than 1/8 inch. The best way to achieve this is to roll from the center of the disc out in even strokes. Turn your disc as you roll to make sure it doesn’t have hills and valleys.

Metal pie tins (plates) are the best conductors of heat, and they do so evenly, making them the best pans to bake pies in. Ceramic and glass pie dishes work, too. If you plan to freeze your pies for the holidays or for last-minute entertaining, assemble and bake your pies in disposable aluminum pie tins. That way, you can have your everyday pie tin freed up.

Place the rolling pin on the far edge of the circle. Pinch the circle’s rim to the rolling pin with your index fingers and roll back to lift it onto it. Roll the entire disc of dough onto the rolling pin, then unroll it over your pie plate. Use your knuckles to press the pie dough gently into the corners and bottom of the pie plate. This will keep the dough’s sides and edges from shrinking as the pie bakes.

Pour the apple mixture into the dough-lined pan. Be sure to use the back of your spoon to press the filling down, or you’ll have air pockets in your baked pie.

Do I Have To Top It With A Lattice Crust?

A lattice top is a decorative top crust for pies, but it does have some practical uses. The openings in a lattice top vents the pie to prevent the dough from splitting as the steam rises from the filling.

Roll out your second disc of dough into a 15-inch circle 1/8-inch thick. If baking a 10-inch pie, roll it out to 16 inches. Use a pastry wheel (or a pizza cutter) to cut out 18 strips of dough, each 3/4-inch (about 1 cm) wide. It’s always better to have more strips than not enough.

Use a pencil to mark the circumference of the pie plate on the underside of parchment paper. Use the top rim as a guide, not the bottom (which is smaller).
Flip the paper over after you’ve marked it. Starting in the middle of the circle, place strips 3/4-inch apart, ensuring they’re spaced evenly. Fold back every other strip to the middle of the circle. It doesn’t matter where you start. Just make sure every other one is folded back halfway. Pay attention to the strips of dough that are straight. Those will be folded back on the next go-round.
Lay a strip of dough across the pie, starting in the center. Straighten the strips of dough you folded back. Now, fold back the strips of dough that you left straight. Lay another strip of dough 3/4-inch from the first one (that you laid across). Unfold the strips of dough to return them to their straight positions.
Fold back the strips you folded the first time and repeat. Continue this pattern until the top half of the circle is weaved, then do the bottom half.

Carefully slide the paper with the latticed dough onto a sheetpan or pizza pan and refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes.

How Do I Attach The Pie Crusts?

An egg wash seals the pie crust together. Egg washes also give your pie a glossy finish when they’re brushed on the lattice’s surface and the pie’s rim.
Whisk together the egg yolk and cold water in a small mixing bowl. Brush a thin layer of the beaten egg wash onto the rim of the bottom pie crust.
Remove the chilled lattice top from the fridge and flip it onto the filled bottom pie shell quickly but carefully. Press the lattice to the rim of the bottom shell to seal it. Once sealed, use a sharp knife or a pair of kitchen shears to trim off the dough touching your counters. Leave the rest of the dough to form the crust.

Brush a layer of the egg wash on top of the lattice crust. Fold the excess strips of dough up and to an angle to create the crust. I’m a sucker for pie crust, so I love to use up as much of the dough as possible. But you can trim anything beneath the rim of the pie tin. Use cookie cutters to cut out cute shapes from the scraps of pie dough and attach them to the top of the lattice.

Once the strips are folded, crimp the edges by grabbing the dough between your thumb and forefinger. Twist counterclockwise to flute the edge. Continue all the way around the pie until the crust is formed. You can also go old-school and press the tines of a fork onto the edge to create a decorative design.

Chill the pie in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up the butter in the pie crust and keep it from falling as it bakes in the oven.

Take this time to preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Can I Freeze The Pie Before Baking?

To freeze an assembled, unbaked pie, freeze it uncovered for 1 hour. After the pie is frozen, wrap it in two layers of plastic wrap and freeze it for up to 3 months.

Thaw it in the fridge overnight or bake it from frozen after brushing the egg wash over it again. If you’re baking from frozen, you’ll need to add 30 minutes to the baking time.

How Long Does It Take To Bake An Apple Cinnamon Pie?

Remove it from the fridge after 30 minutes and brush another layer of the egg wash over the surface of the pie. If you’re baking in a glass or ceramic pie dish, let the pie plate warm up for 5-10 minutes on the counter, or the temperature change could cause the dish to shatter. Bake the apple cinnamon pie in the oven for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C) after 20 minutes of baking and continue baking it for 40-45 minutes. Rotate the pie after a half hour to make sure the pie develops a golden-brown crust. If the pie crust is browning too much, lightly place a piece of aluminum foil or a pie shield over the top to keep it from browning further. You want the crust to be golden brown and the pie filling to bubble through the lattice. Those visual cues and the two different baking temps will ensure a perfectly baked pie.

How Long Does The Pie Need To Cool Down After Baking?

Allow the apple cinnamon pie to cool for at least 20 minutes after removing it from the oven.

This cooling period allows the filling to set up and allows you to cut cleaner slices from the pie. You can also allow it to cool completely before cutting it.

How Do I Serve Apple Cinnamon Pie?

The best way to serve pie is topped with vanilla ice cream or à la mode. I prefer frozen custard myself, so here are a few I recommend:

You can also serve your slice of apple pie topped with whipped cream or by itself.

How Do I Store Leftovers?

To freeze a baked apple pie:

Bake and cool the pie completely.
Wrap it in a layer of plastic wrap, followed by a layer of foil, and freeze it for 2 months.
Thaw it at room temperature, uncovered, or in the fridge, covered. You can warm it in a 200°F (93°C) oven for 20 minutes to fake like you just made it if need be.

My Apple Cinnamon Pie with Lattice Crust turns the classic apple pie into a perfect apple pie with its warm spices and flaky pie crust. Apple desserts don’t come any better than this, and during this time of year, when the apples are at their tastiest, you will want to make this recipe again and again. Save this pie recipe to your dessert board for easy finding, and make it after your next apple picking trip. Don’t forget to let me know how you like it in the comments section, too!