How to Make Cat Lady Chai Cookies From Kamala’s Recipes

In a YouTube video from 2019, Vice President Kamala Harris — at the time, a US senator — bakes cookies in the kitchen of an Iowa voter. She expertly cracks the eggs with one hand and reminisces about how she loved sneaking spoonfuls of raw cookie dough from the bowl as a young girl. “This is the beginning of any good cookie recipe,” she says while mixing the butter and sugar. Vice President Harris has often used cooking to connect to voters — so much so that there’s now a whole website dedicated to her recipes, as well as others she’s inspired.

On the website Kamala’s Recipes, you can find the recipe for the Blue Wave Tuna Melt she once made during an Instagram Live, the Bathtub Collard Greens she talked about at a Georgia rally earlier this year, and the turkey brine she famously shared with a reporter just before going on air in 2020.

In addition to the cookies she made on YouTube back in 2019, Kamala’s Recipes also features Cat Lady Chai Cookies. (The full recipe is ahead.) Cat Lady Chai Cookies are essentially an iced sugar cookie, but instead of plain vanilla, the icing incorporates chai spice — the main ingredient in Indian-style tea — paying homage to the presidential candidate’s South Asian heritage. The cookies also include eggnog, taking inspiration from the chai sugar cookie recipe of Taylor Swift, who in 2020 showed her support of the Democratic ticket by decorating her cookies with the Biden-Harris logo in an Instagram post.

The name Cat Lady Chai Cookies, as you might’ve guessed, is a reference to J.D. Vance’s comments about Harris and the Democratic Party being made up of “childless cat ladies” in 2021, a talking point that conservatives have continued to recycle. Swift famously reclaimed the label by signing off her much-anticipated endorsement of Harris this year with “Childless Cat Lady.” Addressing the broader discourse, Harris later stated on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that “family comes in many forms, and I think that increasingly, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore.” And since it’s not the 1950s, it’s also safe to say that sugar cookies can also have chai spice.

Though the flavor profile of Cat Lady Chai Cookies may challenge that of a traditional sugar cookie, they’re basically catnip if you already like chai and eggnog. The cookie dough itself is like any other sugar cookie, as it combines butter with sugar, eggs, powdered sugar, flour, and vanilla. The chai spice and eggnog don’t come in until later, as they’re added to the icing, along with powdered sugar, more vanilla, and milk.

It’s worth noting that these cookies aren’t a quick recipe, so if you plan to make them for the next presidential debate or while watching the election results, keep in mind they require patience. You’ll have to let the dough sit in the refrigerator for an hour or at least 15 minutes in the freezer because otherwise, they’ll spread too much in the oven. Then, set aside time to shape, sugarcoat, and allow the cookies to cool sufficiently after taking them out of the oven to prevent the icing from melting when spread or drizzled on top.

Despite the somewhat lengthy cooking process, these Cat Lady Chai Cookies are well worth it. Despite the vegetable oil, they’re rich and buttery but not greasy, and they have a soft, chewy texture. The icing adds a layer of warm, spiced flavor that complements the sweetness, and there’s plenty to share, too. The recipe on the website claims to yield a dozen cookies, but if you use the recommended one-tablespoon portions for each cookie, you will actually end up with 32. (Harris was not exaggerating when she said she loved snacking on raw cookie dough.)

If you want to try these Cat Lady Chai Cookies for yourself, keep reading for step-by-step photos and the full recipe.

Kalea Martín writes primarily about food and cooking for PS, but as a former figure skater and hockey player, she covers fitness, too. Prior to becoming a lifestyle writer, Kalea covered hotels, restaurants, and travel for Luxos Magazine in Milan and worked in marketing at HarperCollins Publishers.