Taylor Swift vs Donna Kelce: the big, fat cookie bake-off – choose your pick this Christmas

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“I’d like to see Taylor and Donna bake Christmas cookies,” wrote another fan. “They’ll be singing along to Christmas Tree Farm and Travis is in the kitchen ... taste testing.”

Some folks have actually pitted the two cookies against each other in bake-offs this holiday season.

YouTuber Alexandra Rogers, wearing red Chiefs gear, baked both recipes last month as she watched the Chiefs play the Philadelphia Eagles on “Monday Night Football”. Kelce’s brother, Jason Kelce, is the Eagles centre.

Rogers used gluten-free flour in both recipes and in the end preferred Kelce’s chocolate chip cookie – soft and chewy with Ghirardelli chocolate chips and the not-so-secret-anymore ingredient, a hint of cinnamon.

Kelce sweetly gave her sons containers of her home-made chocolate chippers before they played each other in the Super Bowl this year.

“I always bring cookies to the games. All their friends want them. It’s just love from home,” Kelce explains in that TikTok posted by Serious Food Fetish. “Everybody has a basic chocolate chip recipe ... with brown sugar and flour. I use both cake flour and regular flour, you know, one cup of each.

“I basically take the butter and melt it in the microwave and it just makes the cookies creamier.

“One thing that I do is I have white chocolate and milk chocolate and I also put in a little bit of cinnamon. And I let the dough sit overnight in the refrigerator so all the flavours mesh in together. That’s about it.”

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Swift’s chai sugar cookie recipe has reached legendary status among her fans, many of whom made batches this week to celebrate her birthday Wednesday. It’s a Swiftie thing.

Nine years ago the singer adapted an old recipe for a giant vanilla sugar cookie from the blog of Joy Wilson, known in baking circles as Joy the Baker.

Swift concocted her cookie for fans attending the 1989 Secret Sessions, exclusive listening parties in 2014 held before the release of her “1989” album.

Swift posted a picture of the cookies online, calling them “chai sugar cookies with cinnamon eggnog icing AKA Christmas in September.” She posted the recipe to Tumblr after fans asked for it and since then her version has been remixed countless times.

“MMMKAY – there are two ways you can go about this,” Swift wrote on Tumblr. “The quick and easy way is to make sugar cookies from a sugar cookie mix and just cut open a packet of chai tea and pour it into the batter as you make it. Cause you’re busy and you want making cookies to be a chill part of your day. Pow. Done.”

She said she added the chai element “because I thought it would infuse cosy holiday vibez into the cookie and it really did.”

Wilson writes on Joythebaker.com that every fall her blog “lights up with new visitors” who come searching for Swift’s recipe, “a classic sugar cookie loaded with real chai spices and topped with a nutmeg glaze.”

Here are the two recipes getting a lot of attention this holiday season thanks to the hottest romance of the year.

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Ingredients

For the cookies

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I like canola or sunflower oil)

• 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

• Pinch of fresh cracked black pepper

• 1 large egg

• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean pod

• 2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour

• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• Cinnamon sugar for rolling

For the glaze

• 1 1/2 cups (180 grams) powdered sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, plus more for sprinkling the top of the cookies

• 3 tablespoons whole milk or eggnog

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit) . Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter in a large bowl on medium speed for about 1 minute. Add the vegetable oil. It may not fully incorporate with the butter, but that is OK. Add the granulated sugar, powdered sugar, and all of the spices. Beat to combine.

3. Add the egg and vanilla and continue beating on medium speed until completely incorporated.

4. Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt all at once using a wooden spoon or the mixer set on low.

5. The dough will be soft. Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour or freeze for 15 minutes just so it’s easier to handle.

6. For large cookies, dollop 2 tablespoons of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. For smaller cookies use 1 tablespoon for each cookie. Press the dough evenly with your fingers or palm to 1/4-inch thickness. Roll each cookie dough in a small bowl of cinnamon sugar.

7. Bake for 12-14 minutes for larger cookies or eight to 10 minutes for smaller cookies. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before transferring to racks to cool completely.

8. In a medium bowl, whisk together the glaze ingredients to thick but spreadable. Spread each cooled cookie with graze just over the centre, leaving the edges of the cookie free of glaze. Sprinkle with a bit of fresh nutmeg if you have it. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four days. Makes about two dozen cookies.

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups sweet cream butter

• 1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water to activate (microwave water first, then stir in baking soda to dissolve)

• 2 cups all purpose flour

• 1 cup cake or pastry flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt

• 1 cup Ghirardelli white chocolate chips

• 1 cup Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips

• Optional: 1 cup pecans

Directions

1. Melt butter in the microwave in 20-second increments. Pour into a mixing bowl or the bowl of stand mixer. Let cool for 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Add brown and white sugar to the butter mixture and mix for four minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix for 30 seconds. Then, add dissolved baking soda.

3. In a separate bowl, add all-purpose flour, cake or pastry flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, and mix to combine.

4. Slowly add the dry ingredients to mixer 1/2 cup at a time, scraping down sides. Add all chocolate chips and pecans, if desired, with a wooden spoon.

5. Put dough in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, but ideally overnight.

6. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). Before baking, let the dough come to room temperature. Scoop dough onto a cookie sheet, leaving two inches between scoops, five minutes before baking.

7. For small cookies, bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden around edges. For larger cookies, bake for 13 to 15 minutes. If you touch the top of the cookie and it bounces back instead of indenting, that means it’s ready.