Chai Tea Crinkle Cookies

These chai tea crinkle cookies made with milk tea and chai spices make a delightful and unique addition to your Christmas cookie platter. Best enjoyed with a cup of tea!

Hello, my dear lovelies. Hope you are well and ready to indulge, because this is the season for cookies, cakes, puddings, and all things nice. Life is short, so I feel that a few days of indulgence are worth it. And that’s why, instead of making a dozen kinds of cookies, I bake two or three irresistible ones every year for Christmas.

This year’s recipe has been on my mind for a long time. Chai crinkle cookies – my favorite Indian chai in cookie form. I love making this chai cake all the time, and I’m happy to report that these cookies taste exactly like it, but bite-sized and so much cuter.

Before I get to the actual recipe, I would like to talk to you about one of my favorite kitchen appliances these days. I am beyond thrilled to act as brand ambassador for Wolf Gourmet and bring to you the Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven. This one is a game-changer, literally. Built in the signature Wolf Gourmet style with a sleek brushed stainless steel body and chunky matte red knobs, they blend seamlessly in my kitchen with the rest of the Wolf Gourmet appliances.

The biggest attraction for me is its perfect size; not too small, not too big. I no longer have to fire up our full-sized oven for small meals. This oven is perfect for baking, roasting, broiling, toasting and even proofing bread dough.

Some other cool features that it boasts:

• Wide range of temperature control.
• One-touch convection mode, which can be used in roast or bake mode to reduce cooking time by up to twenty-five percent.
• Integrated temperature probe which allows you to monitor your meat’s temperature without opening the oven door.
• Crumb tray that makes cleanup  a breeze. (Wolf Gourmet’s toaster has this lovely feature as well).
• Three perfectly positioned oven rack positions that comfortably fit standard 9×13 pans, along with a set of easy-glide rack, baking pan and broil rack to get you started.

After putting it through the usual paces, I baked a batch of my chai tea crinkle cookies last weekend, and they came out simply perfect. I also made thumbprint cookies but they were all gone before I could get pictures. Maybe I’ll make them again to show you guys, would you like that?

Now, about these cookies. Where shall I even begin? These are not just chai spiced cookies, but cookies with real chai (Indian milk tea) flavor. I based this recipe on my extremely popular Orange Crinkle Cookies. I replaced a part of the butter and orange juice in the original recipe with some freshly brewed Indian milk chai. I added my favorite Indian chai spices like cinnamon, cardamom and ginger to the dough. It smelled utterly divine and the dough tasted just like my Indian Chai Cake batter. After a couple of hours of chilling, the dough was firm enough to be rolled, coated with powdered sugar and baked to crinkly perfection in my new countertop oven.

These tea cookies are perfectly sweet, subtly but perfectly flavored, and so fragrant. Every time I open the cookie jar, it smells utterly divine! I also think that their flavor develops in a day or two. I like to enjoy my cookie with a hot cup of tea to dunk it in. Dunk, eat, sip – that’s the way it is done!

Here are a few other cookie recipes to get you started with your Christmas baking.

• Chocolate Dipped Almond Orange Cookies
• Gingerbread Cutout Cookies
• Chewy Spiced Molasses Cookies
• Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Almond Biscotti
• & more…

Here’s my recipe for Chai Tea Crinkle Cookies.

Chai Tea Crinkle Cookies

 

Save Print

Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

12 mins

Total time

42 mins

 

These chai tea crinkle cookies made with milk tea and chai spices make a delightful and unique addition to your Christmas cookie platter. Best enjoyed with a cup of tea!

Author: Anjana Devasahayam

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: American, Indian

Serves: 24

You will need:

• Milk - ¼ cup
• Loose black tea - 2 tsp
• All-purpose flour - 2 cups
• Baking powder - 2 tsp
• Salt - ½ tsp
• Ground cardamom - 1 tsp
• Ground cinnamon - ½ tsp
• Ground ginger - ¼ tsp
• Unsalted butter - ½ cup, softened
• Fine granulated sugar - Scant 1 cup + ¼ cup (see Notes)
• Egg - 1, large
• Egg yolk - 1, large
• Rose water - ½ tsp (see Notes)
• Powdered sugar - ½ cup

How to:

1. Begin by heating the milk in a small saucepan till it bubbles at the sides. Add tea and let it come to a gentle boil. Remove from heat, cover and let steep for 2-3 minutes. Strain the tea and cool to room temperature.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder
3. In a mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, 1 cup granulated sugar, egg and egg yolk till pale and fluffy, around 2 minutes. Add rose water and tea and mix well.
5. Tip in the dry ingredients and mix slowly until combined. The dough will come together but be very sticky. At this point, cover the mixing bowl with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour. This will make handling the dough much easier while forming the cookies.
6. When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 deg.F. Line a couple of large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
7. Take ¼ cup granulated sugar and the powdered sugar in two separate shallow bowls. Scoop out tablespoonfuls of the dough and roll into neat balls in the palm of your hand. Roll the dough balls first lightly in granulated sugar, and then liberally in powdered sugar. Place on the baking sheet, 2" apart (cookies will spread when baking).
8. Bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes or till edges are lightly golden and center is just set.
9. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove cookies with a flat spatula on to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy with a warm glass of milk or hot tea. Store leftover cookies in an airtight container.

Notes:

1. You can use a little extra milk while brewing tea so as to end up with exactly ¼ cup after straining.
2. The additional ¼ cup of granulated sugar is used to lightly coat the balls of cookie dough before coating them in the powdered sugar. This helps with getting the crinkly texture, otherwise the powdered sugar will bake off in the oven. Do not shake off any powdered sugar after rolling, the more there is, the better the crinkly effect.
3. I have used rose water in this recipe because it goes so well with the tea and spices. You are free to replace it with an equal amount of pure vanilla extract.

3.5.3229

These are seriously some of the best cookies I have ever made and eaten!

Don’t forget to PIN & SAVE this recipe for later.

GIVEAWAY: Just in time for the Holidays, I have teamed up with Wolf Gourmet so that one of you guys can win this amazing new countertop oven (retails for $699). The giveaway will run on my Instagram feed, so follow me if you aren’t already and hop over there to enter. Good luck!

You can also find the Wolf Gourmet countertop oven in retail stores here.

Do you try a new Christmas cookie recipe every year? Are you looking for a unique and delicious cookie recipe? Then you gotta try this and let me know! Tag me on socials (@happyandharried) if you do make them.

Go here for all recipes in my #ChristmasRecipeSeries over the years.

If you like this post, please follow this blog via Email to get post updates (find subscription box on the right side of this page, or scroll down in mobile version).

Stay connected on social media, PIN and SHARE this post.

Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter | Google+

I am sharing this over at Fiesta Friday.

Disclaimer: I was sent this countertop oven by Wolf Gourmet to test and review. I was not monetarily compensated for this review, and all opinions stated above are mine.