New England Apple Pie with Cinnamon

Classic American double-crust apple pie with cinnamon and brown sugar

Origin: New England, USA

From the journey of Cinnamon.

Apple pie is so deeply embedded in American cultural identity that the phrase 'as American as apple pie' functions as a synonym for America itself (yet both of its central ingredients arrived with European colonists. Apples came with English settlers; cinnamon came via the Portuguese and Dutch spice trade, eventually reaching American kitchens through English culinary tradition. The New England apple pie tradition crystallised in the 18th century, when apple orchards planted by settlers had matured and cinnamon had become affordable enough for regular domestic use. The earliest American apple pie recipes) including those in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons (1796), the first cookbook written by an American: call for cinnamon and nutmeg as the essential spice pairing. The double-crust pie, as opposed to the English open tart tradition, became the American form: a full top crust sealing the filling, creating steam inside, turning the apples to a soft, caramelised, deeply cinnamon-scented interior. New England's cold winters and prolific orchard culture made this the regional heartland of American apple pie.

Ingredients

Pastry

  • 300 g plain flour
  • 175 g cold unsalted butter, cubed
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp caster sugar
  • 6 tbsp ice-cold water

Filling

  • 1.2 kg apples (Granny Smith and Honeycrisp mixed), peeled, cored, sliced 5mm thick
  • 150 g light brown sugar
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 0.25 tsp ground allspice
  • 2 tbsp plain flour or cornstarch
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 30 g unsalted butter, in small cubes

Finish

  • 1 whole egg, beaten with 1 tbsp milk (egg wash)
  • 1 tbsp demerara sugar, for crust

Method

  1. Make the pastry: pulse flour, salt, and sugar together. Add cold butter and rub or pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter remaining. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time, mixing until the dough just comes together. Divide in two, flatten into discs, wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.
  2. Make the filling: toss apple slices with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, flour, and lemon juice. Set aside for 15 minutes: the apples will release some juice, which will coat them and the flour will thicken it during baking.
  3. Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F) with a baking sheet inside on the lowest shelf. Roll one pastry disc to about 3mm thick and line a 23 cm deep pie dish. Leave an overhang.
  4. Fill the pie shell with the apple mixture, mounding it slightly in the centre. Dot the filling with the small butter cubes.
  5. Roll the second pastry disc and place over the filling. Trim, then crimp the edges together firmly. Cut 4–5 steam vents in the top. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
  6. Place on the preheated baking sheet (this prevents a soggy bottom). Bake at 200°C for 25 minutes, then reduce to 180°C (355°F) and bake for a further 30 minutes until the crust is deep golden and the filling is bubbling visibly through the vents.
  7. Cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours before cutting. The filling continues to set as it cools: cutting too early produces a liquid, slumping slice.

Notes

The cinnamon in a New England apple pie is the essential flavour. Use the full amount. A mix of tart (Granny Smith) and sweet (Honeycrisp, Cox, Braeburn) apples gives the best texture and flavour complexity. Serve with vanilla ice cream or sharp cheddar cheese: the New England tradition of apple pie with cheddar is an entirely authentic and excellent combination.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
c. 1890 CE
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1890 CE
3000 BCE100 CE1640 CE1890 CE
Cinnamon

Cinnamon

Cinnamomum spp.

Spices & AromaticsTree Bark

🌍Origin

Sri Lanka, South India and Southeast Asia. — c. 3000 BCE

🌱Domestication

Three distinct species of Cinnamomum shaped the global cinnamon story, each with its own origin, character, and trade corridor. Cinnamomum verum (true cinnamon) is native to Sri Lanka’s hill country, where Salagama caste peelers developed the delicate art of stripping, drying, and rolling the inner bark into thin, layered quills: a technique unchanged for millennia. Sri Lanka produces 80–90% of the world’s C. verum to this day, and it remains the benchmark for quality. Cinnamomum malabatrum (Malabar cinnamon) is native to the Western Ghats of Kerala: here it is not the bark but the aromatic leaf that is traded, known to the ancient world as malabathrum and recorded in the 1st-century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as a prized Malabar coast export. Cinnamomum burmannii (Indonesian or Korintje cinnamon) is native to the forested highlands of Sumatra and is the most widely sold cinnamon in the world today: bolder, more pungent, and less complex than C. verum, it is the cinnamon of American supermarkets, most Southeast Asian cooking, and the majority of commercially produced cinnamon products globally. Cinnamomum cassia (Chinese cassia) has a fourth independent origin in the forests of Guangxi and Fujian, traded westward along the Silk Road since at least 2700 BCE. The spice on any given kitchen shelf is one of these four, and they are not interchangeable.

⛵Global Voyage

One of the most prized ancient spices, cinnamon’s source was deliberately obscured by Arab and Phoenician traders for millennia (a disinformation campaign so effective that Roman authors believed it was harvested from bird nests or guarded by giant serpents in an unnamed southern land. The quest to reach and control the cinnamon supply drove some of the most consequential chapters in European colonial history: the Portuguese seized Sri Lanka in 1518, the Dutch VOC ousted them in 1638 and established the brutal plantation system that devastated the island’s forests, before the British took control in 1796. The ancient Roman name for Sri Lanka was Serendib) the origin of the English word serendipity (because any trader who stumbled upon it was set for life. A parallel story unfolded in China, where Cinnamomum cassia had been independently cultivated and traded westward along the Silk Road since at least 2700 BCE, reaching Persia and Arabia through an entirely separate corridor long before Sri Lankan C. verum arrived. A third thread ran through the Indonesian archipelago: Cinnamomum burmannii) native to the forests of West Sumatra, cultivated by the Minangkabau people of the Padang Highlands (entered the spice trade through the Srivijaya Empire and the maritime networks of the Javanese archipelago. Bolder and more pungent than the Sri Lankan original, it is this variety that would eventually become the dominant cinnamon of the modern era, filling American supermarket jars and Southeast Asian kitchens alike. And a fourth corridor ran from Kerala’s Western Ghats, where Cinnamomum malabatrum was traded as malabathrum) an aromatic leaf, not a bark (through the Indian Ocean networks of the 1st century CE. From the Americas to Scandinavia, cinnamon became woven into the culinary identity of nearly every civilisation it reached) but its story is not one origin, one species, or one people: it is three or four distinct trees from different corners of Asia, converging on the same spice rack.

🍽Modern Culinary Role

One of the world’s most universally used spices, but which cinnamon depends entirely on where you are. Cinnamomum verum (true or Ceylon cinnamon), produced almost entirely in Sri Lanka, commands premium prices for its delicate, floral, paper-thin quills; it is the cinnamon of European fine baking, Mexican canela, and the historically authentic spice trade. Cinnamomum burmannii (Indonesian or Korintje cinnamon), produced primarily in Sumatra, supplies the bulk of the American market and most commercial ground cinnamon globally, its thick, dark bark is more pungent and astringent than C. verum and contains higher levels of coumarin. Cinnamomum cassia (Chinese cassia) and its close relative Cinnamomum loureiroi (Vietnamese cassia) dominate the East and Southeast Asian markets, their bold, sharp flavour essential to Chinese five-spice and Vietnamese phở. Cinnamomum malabatrum (Malabar leaf cinnamon) survives as a niche spice in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, its aromatic leaves used in rice cooking and folk medicine. What is sold simply as ‘cinnamon’ in most of the world is C. burmannii; what is sold as ‘true’ or ‘Ceylon’ cinnamon is C. verum. The distinction matters: flavour, coumarin content, and price differ substantially.

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