Taylor Swift’s Easy Cookies Are the Coziest Thing You’ll Make All Fall

And they make for a great tailgate dessert, too!

taylor swift and a stack of her chai cookies
Photo: Dotdash Meredith

From cardigans to autumn air—and now Kansas City Chiefs football—there's just something about this season that we associate with Taylor Swift.

A few years ago, a recipe from Swift herself resurfaced that has had the entire internet turning their ovens on and breaking out their stand mixers ever since. So, we guess she's given us another reason to love fall: these Chai Cookies with Eggnog Frosting.

How to Make Taylor Swift's Chai Cookies

Swift first posted these cookies to Instagram way back in 2009, when Instagram looked like this:

taylor swift's cookies on instagram
Instagram

According to a since-deleted Tumblr post, after fans begged for the recipe, Swift replied in a blog post that there are two ways to go about making these cookies.

"The quick and easy way is to make sugar cookies from a sugar cookie mix and just cut open a packet of chai tea and pour it into the batter as you make it. Cause you're busy and you want making cookies to be a chill part of your day. Pow. Done," Swift writes.

To make them from scratch, which Swift adds she did for 1989 Secret Sessions, you start with a basic but "insanely good" sugar cookie recipe like this one from Joy the Baker, but she mentions that she also likes recipes from Smitten Kitchen (us too, Taylor!). These recipes for Chai Butter Cookies, Chai Snickerdoodle Cookies, and Chai Tea Cookies are also a good base for the cookie—just add the eggnog icing (below).

Swift continues, "I added the chai element to the recipe because I thought it would infuse cozy holiday vibez into the cookie and it really did." To follow in Swift's footsteps, make Joy's recipe as is, but after adding the egg and vanilla to the batter, "cut one chai tea packet open and empty the crushed up tea leaves into the batter CAUSE CHAI COOKIES ARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN UP IN HERE."

Once the dough is made, bake the cookies according to the recipe directions. Warning: at this point, your home will smell better than any Yankee Candle ever could with the wonderful autumnal chai spice in the air.

(Side note: Joy, the recipe creator, has since added an updated version of the recipe to her website in honor of Swift's adaptation, so you can just make that one, too.)

Then the most important part, the part that separates these cookies from the rest: the eggnog glaze. Taylor, you just get us.

She writes, "If you want to make icing for them, just mix 1 cup powdered sugar with 1/4 T-spoon of nutmeg, 1/4 T-spoon of cinnamon and 3 TAYblespoons <—-(I'm so annoying, it astounds me sometimes) of milk or eggnog if you can find it this time of year. The more milk/eggnog you add, the more your icing will become a glaze. But glazes are legit too so basically just LIVE YOUR LIFE."

And that's it. With just a few basic ingredients, you can have these cookies ready by halftime—though we'd recommend making them beforehand so you can fully enjoy the game (and all the T. Swift cameos).

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