Years ago a song by Taylor Swift inspired a baker to make chai-tea cookies. The recipe for the same went viral in 2014. Joy Wilson, the baker, ended up meeting Taylor Swift, Taylor mentioning that she reads her blogs and more. The story doesn’t end there! Taylor baked some sugar cookies following Wilson’s recipe but added her own twist. Yep, you guessed it, chai sugar cookies!
The 2014 Trend Of Chai-Tea Cookies Is Back Again
8 years ago today, taylor swift shared her chai cookies recipe via tumblr.
october 7, 2014 pic.twitter.com/PMICgZJQxs
— i’m the problem (@ThrowbackTaylor) October 7, 2022
Swift shared the same recipe of freshly baked chai sugar cookies during her “1989 Secret Sessions” on her Tumblr. After Taylor shared the archive post, Joy Wilson posted another video of chai-tea cookies.
And, now that Taylor’s much-hyped album Midnights has been released, the baker’s chai-tea cookies are again getting popular. Some are even adding their own twists to it! Fans are celebrating the brand-new album with the chai sugar cookies recipe Swift shared on Tumblr after she posted a picture of the same on her Instagram. In 2014, Taylor captioned it as “Chai Sugar Cookies with Cinnamon Eggnog Frosting, aka Christmas.”
In her Tumblr post, Taylor wrote: “I believe it was originally from a book called The Pastry Queen. This is a recipe for basic insanely good sugar cookies. I added the chai element to the recipe because I thought it would infuse cozy holiday vibez into the cookie and it really did.”
Umm, yeah, Taylor added tea leaves to the cookies! *let that sink in*
Now, with Midnights’s release, or any Taylor album for that matter, these chai-tea cookie recipes and their many variations go viral. You can spot the trends on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and even Pinterest!
Also read: 96-Year-Old Wenger’s Bakery In Delhi’s CP Offers The Best Hotdogs, Waffles And Smoothies
As Desis, Our Chai Time Has Our Fave Cookies And Biscuits
Okay, we have seen a lot of weird food combinations this year and this one oddly makes some sense to us (some of us; we are divided). But call us old-fashioned or just desis, we love our good ol’ biscuits and cookies (sans the tea leaves) along with our chai!
Well, for us desis this combination of pairing up our cup of tea with cookies is not at all uncommon. We’ve grown up eating Khari biscuits, mathris, and aata cookies (Naankhatai), with a cup of tea. The sugar cookies for us are none other than Naankhatais. Right? Right! So, the idea of tea leaves in batter and chai cookies is not settling in well, TBH. Chai and cookies should be two separate things, don’t you agree?
Also, respectfully folks, it is not chai-tea, it is just chai or just tea. Please stop this abomination!
*goes back to dunking naankhatai in a cuppa of tea*
Also read: This Kerala Startup Is Making Cookies From Algae And Seaweed And We Are Awestruck!
Cover image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons and Pexels
Written by Vinita Jain. Edited by Rachna Srivastava