Taylor Swift’s Soft Chai Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting
Perfectly sweet and spiced chai sugar cookies inspired by the recipe from the one and only Taylor Swift! These easy, soft chai sugar cookies are baked with a warming mix of spices like ginger, cardamom, and cloves, and get topped with a lovely vanilla bean cream cheese frosting. Add your favorite sprinkles for a festive cookie everyone will love.
Servings 24 cookies
Ingredients
- Dry ingredients:
- 1 ¾ cups (210g) all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- Wet ingredients:
- ½ cup (1 stick, 113g) salted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (60g) powdered sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon plain or vanilla whole-milk greek yogurt (or sub sour cream)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- For the vanilla bean cream cheese frosting:
- 4 tablespoons (57g) salted butter, at room temperature
- 4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 ½ (180g) cups powdered sugar
- 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds removed (or sub ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract)
- 1 to 3 teaspoons milk (or eggnog!), to make the frosting creamy
- Gold sparkling sugar, pearl or gold pearl sprinkles, or Christmas sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix the dry ingredients: In a large bowl, add the flour, cornstarch, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves and allspice, baking powder, baking soda and salt; whisk the dry ingredients together until well combined then set aside.
- Mix the wet ingredients: In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the butter, granulated sugar and powdered sugar. Using the paddle attachment, beat the mixture together until well combined and butter and sugar are well incorporated, about 1 minute. Add in the egg (make sure it is at room temperature!), the Greek yogurt and then vanilla extract. Mix again on medium speed until the ingredients are well combined, about 1 minute. You may need to scrape the bowl down a few times with a rubber spatula and mix again.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix on medium low speed until the dry ingredients are well incorporated into the wet ingredients and a dough forms.
- Use a small cookie scoop to grab tablespoonful sized dough balls and roll into balls. Place dough balls on the cookie sheet, 2 inches apart, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. They may look slightly underbaked but that is the trick to keeping them soft so try not to overbake! Allow cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for 5 to 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
- Once cookies have cooled, prepare the frosting: In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the softened butter and cream cheese and whip on high until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add in powdered sugar, seeds from the vanilla beans, and milk, and beat slowly at first, then increase speed to high and beat for 1 to 2 minutes. Spread the frosting over the cooled cookies then sprinkle them with sprinkles of choice. Enjoy! Makes 24 cookies.
Notes
Recipe inspired by Taylor Swift herself.
If you want you can omit the spices in the cookies and use a chai tea bag (just dump all of chai tea in the bag into the dough). This is what Taylor does in her original recipe.