Chai Spiced Cookies are a delicious buttery, crumbly sweet treat. Made with cardamom, cinnamon, and other warming spices, these cookies are perfect with a cup of hot coffee or tea.
Chai Spiced Cookies are ball-shaped cookies made with a mix of chai-inspired spices. If you're in fall baking mode, you're going to love these cookies. And you might also like our Strudel Cookies.
Chai Spiced Cookies
I love that you can whip up these cookies last minute. In less than 45 minutes, you have a batch of delicious, two-bite cookies on the table.
Ingredients
- powdered sugar
- butter
- flour
- almond extract
- vanilla extract
- dried cherries. You can find dried, unsweetened cherries in bulk at Whole Foods.
Spices
How To Make Chai Cookies
These cookies are so easy to make.
- Use a large mixing bowl and combine butter and powdered sugar, and the spice mix. Use a stand mixer and the paddle attachment (an electric hand mixer works, too) to blend the ingredients.
- Slowly add flour and dried cherries. Continue to beat the dough until you see it turning into thick dough pieces.
- Remove the dough from the bowl and form it into a large ball.
- Cut in half and begin to shape small dough balls with your hands.
- Place the dough balls on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 350° Fahrenheit.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for about one minute. Use a sifter to dust the warm cookies with a layer of powdered sugar.
- Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool to room temperature.
Baking Notes for the Chai Spiced Cookies
POWDERED SUGAR
In this recipe, you'll need ⅓ cup of powdered sugar for the dough.
The remaining powdered sugar is for either dusting or rolling the cookies. Why do I mention this?
Because if you roll your cookies in powdered sugar you'll end up with a sweeter cookie. And that might be the way you like it.
At my house, we gravitate towards cookies that are a little less sweet, so I generally will give these cookies a quick dusting.
Experiment and see what you and your family like better.
DRIED CHERRIES
- I love dried cherries. They are so flavorful and add a soft texture to the cookies. If you don't like dried cherries, substitute them with raisins.
- One easy way to pack even more flavor into these already flavorful chai-spiced cookies is to soak them before adding them to the dough.
- Sometimes, I've soaked them in good orange juice (I love Trader Joe's unpasteurized, fresh-squeezed orange juice) for a while. It definitely added an extra bit of deliciousness.
- But in the end, I decided that this step wasn't mandatory to end up with amazingly delicious chai-spiced cookies.
- If you decide to soak the dried cherries beforehand, I recommend giving them at least 1 hour to sit in the liquid. I wanted this to be a quick recipe you can make on the fly, which is the reason why I didn't include this step in the original recipe.
Alternatively, you could also soak them in other liquids like brandy.
How long do Chai Cookies last?
You can store the chai cookies in an airtight container for about a month. I've never done that because the cookies have never lasted this long at our house.
More Easy Desserts
Lemon Date Balls. One of my favorite no-bake treats.
Chai Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup powdered sugar divided
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup dried cherries
SPICES
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven 350° Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.
- Combine ⅓ cup of powdered sugar, butter, and spice mix in a large bowl. Blend until the mixture is creamy.
- Add flour and blend the dough begins to turn into large clumps.
- Remove the dough from the bowl. Use your hands and form little dough balls. Place the dough balls onto the baking sheet.
- Bake the cookies for 20 minutes at 350° Fahrenheit.
- Remove the chai spiced cookies from the oven. Allow cookies to cool for a couple of minutes. Dust with remaining powdered sugar.