Description
If Crumbl Cookies made a Taylor Swift chai cookie, this would be it. They are thick, soft, cakey cookies with vanilla buttercream centers.
Ingredients
Scale
For the Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
2 tbsp brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup maple syrup
1.5 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
1.5 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp cardamom
¼ tsp nutmeg
⅛ tsp cloves
1 tsp black tea leaves, optional
1 egg
¼ cup demerara sugar
For the Frosting
½ cup butter, room temperature
1.5 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp milk
Instructions
- In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar for 5 minutes.
- Add the egg yolk and beat for another 2 minutes.
- Add the flour and mix it on low speed (or fold with a spatula), until just incorporated.
- Add the maple syrup and vanilla, and fold to incorporate.
- Add the salt, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and black tea, and fold gently to incorporate.
- Lay out a long piece of plastic wrap. Scoop the dough onto it and form it into a log lengthwise down the middle of the plastic wrap. Grab a medium-sized circular cookie cutter and form the log of dough so that it fits just inside the cookie cutter (is just smaller than the size of the cookie cutter).
- Wrap the log up tightly in the plastic, twist the ends to secure the dough inside the plastic, and roll the log out gently back and forth with your hands to smooth it and make it as cylindrical as possible.
- Chill the dough in the fridge for 2 hours (it will flatten a bit on the side it’s resting on, that’s fine).
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Beat the egg well with a fork in a small bowl. Pour the demerara sugar onto a large plate.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and unwrap it. Brush the log of dough with the egg wash, coating it on all sides. Roll the log in the demerara sugar so the sugar sticks to the exposed surface. In any spots it missed, pat the sugar on with your hands.
- Slice the dough into ½-inch thick cookies. As you slice, roll the log of dough away from you (this helps keep the cookies rounded).
- Lay 6 cookies out on a baking sheet (you can bake two sheets at a time and refrigerate the extra cookies in the meantime).
- Grab a small cap with a flat top (I use a soy sauce bottle cap because it has deep sides and a flat top). Dip it in flour and dust off any excess.
- Grab the circular cookie cutter you used to measure the log of dough. Place it around one cookie (the cookie should be pretty snug in there with only a little space between it and the cookie cutter). Press the small cap into the middle of the cookie to make an indent almost all the way through to the baking sheet. The cookie should press into the edges of the cookie cutter.
- Repeat with remaining cookies.
- Bake the cookies for 12-16 minutes (mine are usually done at 15 minutes exactly).
- Remove them from the oven and immediately reinforce the indents with the bottle cap (press it into each one again). They can puff up while baking, but you can still mold the baked cookies while they are fresh out of the oven.
- Let them cool on a wire rack.
- In the meantime, make the frosting. Beat the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and salt together until smooth.
- When the cookies are cool, fill the centers with the frosting.
- Store them in an air-tight container at room temperature for 3-4 days.
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 15 minutes