I tried Taylor Swift's viral cookie recipe, and I think the 'Midnights' singer is a mastermind in the kitchen

In 2014, Taylor Swift invited fans to her mom's house and baked them cookies. Recently, those cookies went viral (again) on social media.

A month before the multihyphenate star released her album titled "1989" in 2014, she invited groups of fans to her mother's home for private listening parties called Secret Sessions, which included homemade treats like cookies. 

In 2016, a fan posted a screenshot to Tumblr of Swift's Instagram post about chai sugar cookies asking for the recipe. Swift responded with the recipe, her own tips, and some play on words, of course. 

She said fans can use the recipe she loves and found on a blog called Joy the Baker — it's the recipe she said she used for the Secret Sessions treats — or you can add chai tea to a store-bought mix. 

Now, the recipe has made its way onto TikTok with users posting that they made the cookies at home. 

In an effort to enjoy these with the same passion that the internet's favorite anti-hero does, I went with the from-scratch method.

Of course, the first thing I did was set the tone by blasting Swift's "Midnights" album. 

 

She used a recipe she found online but added some tweaks, plus tips for icing. The collective recipe calls for 12 ingredients.

For the cookies themselves, Swift defers to a recipe for giant sugar cookies from a blog called Joy the Baker.

The recipe lists nine ingredients:

• Unsalted butter
• Vegetable oil
• Granulated sugar
• Powdered sugar
• Large egg
• Vanilla extract or vanilla bean seeds
• All-purpose four
• Baking soda
• Salt

The star's Tumblr post, though, also includes chai tea leaves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. 

After warming the butter up to room temperature, I whipped it with a wooden spoon and then combined it with the oil.

I had to warm up my butter since I bought it from the refrigerated section at the market. To do that semi-quickly, I microwaved a tall glass cup for one minute, stood the stick of wrapped butter on its smaller end, and placed the cup upside down over it. This created a little sauna for my butter and it warmed within minutes. 

The recipe says to use a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, but I don't have one of those. So instead, I used a wooden spoon and all of the elbow grease I could muster at the moment. 

Once the butter was a light, whipped consistency, I added the oil and mixed gently until it was almost combined. 

Then it was time to add the egg, vanilla, and both types of sugar into the mix.

I cracked one large egg into the bowl and measured out 1/2 cup each of powdered sugar and granulated sugar. I also mixed in 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. 

At this point, the batter was still pretty viscous, so I had to be gentle while stirring — I didn't want to end up with runny egg and butter all over my sweater or counter. 

Here's where Swift's tips start to come into play: Time to add the chai.

The singer only made a few tweaks to this sugar cookie recipe, but the first is pretty important. 

Enter: chai tea leaves. 

She wrote in her post that home bakers should cut open a single bag of chai tea and add it to the batter right after you mix in the egg and vanilla. 

At first glance, I wasn't sure one bag of chai would really make much of a difference — it just didn't seem like there was much tea in it at all. But while the pouch may seem small compared to the amount of batter you have, trust that one bag is enough. I was impressed with how many tiny little black specks were scattered throughout my dough after mixing it in with my wooden spoon. 

 

Next came the rest of the dry ingredients, which made this bowl of mush start to actually resemble cookie dough.

After the tea leaves were fully incorporated, I added 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt (the recipe's ingredient list doesn't specify what kind of salt to use, so I went with Morton's coarse kosher salt). 

I used the same wooden spoon to gently combine the ingredients before picking up a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides — don't skip that step, or else a chunk of your ingredients will be on the bowl instead of in your cookies. 

The dough was soft and semi-sticky, but I followed the recipe and stuck it in the refrigerator for an hour to solidify a bit, making it easier to handle. 

After an hour, I took the dough out of the fridge and used a tablespoon measure to scoop out little balls of dough.

Joy the Baker's recipe suggests using 2 tablespoons of dough for large cookies and one tablespoon for smaller cookies. I went with the smaller option because I wanted to fit more than two cookies on my baking sheet. 

So I used a tablespoon to scoop out little balls of dough and place them on my parchment-lined sheet pan. Then I pressed each mound gently with my fingers so that they became a bit flatter and more round around the edges. 

Then, I tucked them away in the oven, which I had preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and set a timer for 8 minutes. 

While the dough was chilling, I got started on Swift's icing. Then, I finished it off while the cookies were baking.

The singer's second addition to these cookies came by way of a topping. She used one cup of powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 3 "TAYblespoons" (her pun, not mine) of eggnog. Swift says you can swap that last ingredient for milk if you can't find eggnog.

Once the cookies were done, I topped them off with my homemade icing and dusted them with some cinnamon.

I used a whisk to combine the ingredients and it quickly formed a drippy, sticky, goo that tasted sweet and spice-filled at the same time.

When the cookies were done and starting to cool, I spooned some of the icing on top and sprinkled cinnamon, per Swift's recommendation — once it crystallized, they looked a little bejeweled. 

At first, the icing is runny and spreads easily over the top of each cookie. But after I let them sit for a few minutes, a weak shell formed on top, kind of holding it all in place. The topping was still soft when I bit into it, but the congealed sugar helped it not become a mess. This sensation reminded me of snow on the beach, weird but kind of beautiful.

My biggest warning would be to bake a mini-batch first to test out how your oven works with these cookies.

For my first batch, I followed the recipe's recommended cook time and temperature. But after taking them out and tasting them, I found these cookies to be dry and almost burnt on the bottom. 

Next, I tried reducing the heat to 250 degrees and baked again. I checked on batch No. 2 at eight minutes and then added another two minutes on after determining they were still undercooked. I tacked on another two and, finally, they were ready. 

For me and my oven, 12 minutes at 250 was perfect. These cookies were soft but fully cooked through, and they were completely consistent in color. 

When it comes to which bake time and temp will be right for you and your oven, you can take my advice to help figure it out. But ultimately, you're on your own, kid. 

After tasting these cookies for myself, I can understand why fans are so in love with them.

I now understand why people return to this chai cookie recipe year after year. It's the perfect recipe to bake for holidays, get-togethers, or if you can't sleep during a storm of midnight rain.

They're definitely sugar cookies, but they're not overwhelmingly sweet, which I think is a big draw for some people who, like me, don't love overly-sweet things. I also think the spice from the chai works hard to really balance that out.

I was able to clearly taste the chai, which I really enjoyed and also didn't expect. While mine were delicious, I would advise you to choose your chai wisely. If you want these to be more spiced than sweet, don't pick a chai tea that also has a sweet flavor in it.

I was also able to taste the salt, which similarly surprised me since I thought 1/4 teaspoon was a tiny amount for this size of a cookie-dough batch. The finished cookies were a tad salty, but I thought it brought depth to the flavor profile. 

The icing complements the flavors well with its nuttiness and winter flavor profile. 

Most importantly, I would recommend testing out small batches first for temperature and cook time because it will differ depending on your oven and your baking sheet. 

While I'm new to the world of being a Swiftie, I'm not new to the world of loving cookies — and these were a hit with my friends, coworkers, and possibly the harshest critic of all: me.