Spice Tea Cookies with Chai Icing

These spice tea cookies with chai icing are an easy cookie to make for your next cookie swap. Or just sample a few with your next cup of coffee or tea.

Every year my friend Melanie is kind enough to organize and host a cookie swap. I’m pretty new to the cookie swap idea but have found that it’s great for someone like me who is not a big baker. You make one kind of cookie and come home with a huge variety of cookies for the holidays. It’s a cookie lovers dream! Last year I made a bacon and pretzel chocolate chip cookie which turned out great but this year I was in the mood for some type of spice cookie and came up with this spice tea cookie with chai icing. (Update: I was one of the winner this year to try these out!)

I bought some decaffeinated chai tea from the grocery store and was a bit disappointed with small amount of chai spice in it. If I had a loose leaf Steeped chai tea I would have used that in a heartbeat because they are very flavorful teas. However all I had was two almost empty boxes of Celestial teas: Bengal Spice and Gingerbread. They are very strong and delicious teas but I only had a few bags left to use. If I made these again I might try more tea bags in the batter to get that spicy chai taste but the icing definitely has enough chai flavor so everything works the way it is in this recipe. 

So I had intended to use chai tea in the batter but since that didn’t work out I concentrated on the icing. I had bought the royal icing from a candy shop and just doctored it up with some spices. It definitely had the chai flavoring and turned out great with the rest of the cookie. If you just want to make the cookie and not the icing, add a bit more of the teas to the batter. If you are not freaked out about eating batter, taste it and add more tea if you think it needs it. But keep in mind the flavor will lessen once they are cooked. So even if it’s strong it will be less so when you bake it.

Spice Tea Cookies with Chai Icing

I know it’s a little late in the season for a cookie recipe but I really liked these and wanted to share them with you all. While I’m sure you know to take the tea out of the bags, you have to take the tea out of the bags. And if you don’t have these specific teas, you can substitute with any type of spice flavored tea.  You could even eliminate them altogether as long as you use the chai icing. Enjoy!

5 from 4 votes

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Spice Tea Cookies with Chai Icing

These spice tea cookies with chai icing are an easy cookie to make for your next cookie swap. Or just sample a few with your next cup of coffee or tea.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings 48

Author Denise Wright (MyLifeCookbook.com)

Ingredients

• 2¼ cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup butter flavored Crisco
• ¾ granulated sugar
• ¾ cup brown sugar packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large eggs room temperature
• 2 bags of Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea remove bags
• 2 bags of Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread tea remove bags

Chai Icing

• 1 cup royal icing
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/8 teaspoon cardamon ground

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl mix the flour, salt, tea and baking soda.
3. With your mixer cream the butter, Crisco, sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla until creamy.
4. Slowly add your flour mixture until everything is well combined. May have to scrap down the sides to get everything mixed.
5. Place your cookies on a cookie sheet (not greased) and bake for 10-12 minutes depending on the size of your cookies.
6. Check for doneness and desired color.
7. Let cool completely before icing.
8. For the icing: Mix the royal icing with the cinnamon, ginger, cardamon and pumpkin spice.
9. When cookies are completely cooled, decorate with the icing. I used a squeeze bottle.
10. Let the cookies sit out overnight to harden the icing.
11. This recipe makes enough icing for a double batch of cookies so you can cut it in half if you are making a single batch.
12. Enjoy!

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