Cardamom and Tea

chai snickerdoodles + spice variations

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Even if you’re here visiting my blog for the very first time (hi!), even if you know nothing else about me, you’ve at the very least probably inferred that I seem to like the combination of cardamom and tea. And you’d be right! (You can read more about why here). Indeed, these spiced chai snickerdoodles get their flavor from cardamom and black tea powder.

A little cardamom goes a very long way, so be careful not to overdo it, lest your cookies go from fragrant to perfumey. I’ve included a lot less cardamom here than the amount of cinnamon you’d use in a classic snickerdoodle. But the black tea powder swoops in to give them that classic snickerdoodle patina. It also lends a nice bitter note—a welcome addition to a typically *sweet sweet sweet!* cookie.

The base snickerdoodle recipe here yields a chewy-crisp cookie. If you’ve always wanted to customize a baking recipe, but find the idea intimidating, snickerdoodles are a great starting point. You can add pretty much whatever spices you’d like to the sugar coating, and you can taste it as you go. Spices and powdered tea won’t affect the chemistry of the recipe, and it’s really all about flavor customization.

So feel free to experiment! This recipe’s dough includes some ground-up black tea, which you can leave in or omit. It won’t affect the texture of the dough one bit.

chai snickerdoodles with a cup of chai

snickerdoodle variations

  • anise cinnamon: Omit the black tea in the cookies and sugar coating. Replace the cardamom with 2 tablespoons of cinnamon and a small amount of ground anise seed. Add the anise seed about 1/4 teaspoon at a time, and taste the sugar mixture as you go. My preference for anise is never to add so much that it makes something taste like licorice. Instead, it should add an element that feels like an emotionally moving single note held on the violin. Or if you’re not a metaphor person, just taste as you go, and stop once you’re happy with it.
  • masala chai: Leave the black tea in both the dough and sugar coating. Replace the cardamom with your favorite warming spices. Spice blends that work well with tea are perfect. Try this recipe from the chai box, featuring cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and fennel. Add about 1 to 2 teaspoons of ground spices at a time, and taste as you go. Use more sparingly than cinnamon, but more generously than straight-up cardamom—you’ll want to use different blends in different amounts.
  • coriander cinnamon: Omit the black tea in the cookies and sugar coating. Replace the cardamom with 2 tablespoons of cinnamon and 2 teaspoons of ground coriander. My friend Rebecca says that coriander smells to her like Cap’n Crunch, which might be why I love using it in small amounts in sweets. If you add too much, it’ll taste perfumey. But if you add just a little, people will just be that little “ooh, these are so good! but what is that background note that reminds me of Saturday mornings??”
  • plain old cinnamon: Omit the black tea in the cookies and sugar coating. Replace the cardamom with 2 tablespoons of cinnamon. It’s a classic for a reason!
chai snickerdoodles on a sheet pan

a quick PSA about the phrase “chai spiced” and “chai tea”

Whenever someone says “chai spiced” or “chai tea,” I always think of Inigo Montoya:
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

1) Chai simply means “tea,” and tea cannot be used to “spice” something (especially itself 🥴):

In Assyrian, Arabic, Hindi, and many other languages, “chai” just means tea, with or without spices. Calling something “chai” does not necessarily mean it will have spices in it, since it’s just the word for tea. And since you can’t really “spice” something with tea, “chai spiced” just doesn’t make sense when you know what the words actually mean. It’s like calling rice pilaf “chicken-spiced rice.” Or calling French onion soup “onion-spiced soup.” These things are not spices. They can be spiced, but they can’t do the spicing.

And it probably also goes without saying that “chai tea” makes even less sense, and literally just means “tea tea.” It’s like saying “When I was in Italy, I had so much caffè coffee” or “I love Spanish pan bread.” On the other hand, you could of course say “When I was in Italy, I had so much caffè latte” or “I love Spanish pan de barra,” just like you could say “I love masala chai” or “I love spiced chai,” because those additional words are actually specifying the kind of coffee/bread/tea you like. “I like coffee with milk,” “I like Spanish baguettes,” and “I like spiced tea.”

2) Furthermore, chai doesn’t necessarily include spices:

While chai literally means tea, it doesn’t necessarily mean “spiced tea.” Some folks add spices to it and some folks do not. For example, if you ask my grandmother for a cup of chai, she will most likely bring you a cup of plain black tea, maybe with some cardamom if she is using her favorite Persian blend. On the other hand, South Asian masala chai is tea (“chai”) with spices (“masala”), and can include a variety of different flavors (see my friend Izzah’s recipe for kashmiri chai and this super aromatic chai with lemongrass and ginger from Goya Journal).

Whether there are spices (and which spices are used, and even which kind of tea is used) entirely depends on who is making it, but one thing holds constant: “chai” simply means “tea,” and does not mean “spices.” Chai is black tea, it’s green tea, it’s spiced tea, it’s plain tea. It’s literally just a generic term for tea. So if you’re going to call something “chai” flavored, it should really have some actual tea in it.

How to coherently name things inspired by all things related to chai:

  • If you flavor snickerdoodles with the kinds of spices you might find alongside tea, but with no actual tea, you do not end up with “chai spiced snickerdoodles”… you’ve just got “spiced snickerdoodles,” which happen to contain 0 chai.
  • If you flavor your snickerdoodles with tea and spices, you’ve got something like “spiced chai snickerdoodles” or maybe “masala chai snickerdoodles” if they were inspired by a South Asian blend. Or simply “chai snickerdoodles” works great, as with this recipe (since chai may or may not contain spices).
  • And if you flavor them with just tea and no spices, you could totally call them “chai snickerdoodles” or “tea snickerdoodles,” since the word “chai” does not mean spices, and is simply synonymous with “tea.” Will most people be like “where are all the spices?” after you call them “chai snickerdoodles” without including any spices? 100%! If you’re an insufferable know-it-all like me, just correct them. I’m told most people love being corrected, right?
  • “Chai spiced snickerdoodles” doesn’t work for any of these, since you can’t spice something with tea. But having it in the title sure does help with SEO if you’re a food blogger, and leads to fewer conversations about language and culture. So I get it.

So to recap: chai = tea, chai ≠ spices, and “chai-spiced” and “chai tea” are both really awkward phrases when you know what the words mean. No shade if you’ve used these phrases without really thinking about it, but I think it’s always nice to know what the words we use mean.

The more you know! ✨🌈

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chai snickerdoodles

chai snickerdoodles with a cup of chai
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5 from 1 review

  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 12 minutes
  • Total Time: 60 minutes
  • Yield: 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

for the cookie dough:

  • 345g flour (2⅔ cups)
  • 7g cream of tartar (1½ teaspoons)
  • 3g baking soda (½ teaspoon)
  • 227g unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
  • 300g granulated sugar (1½ cups)
  • 4g finely ground* black tea (from 2 bags)
  • 6g salt (1 teaspoon)
  • 100g eggs (2 large), at room temperature
  • 10g vanilla extract (2 teaspoons)

for rolling:

  • 60g granulated sugar (¼ cup)
  • 5g ground cardamom (2 teaspoons)
  • 8g finely ground black tea (from 4 bags)

Instructions

  1. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda in a mixing bowl. Set aside.
  2. Place the butter, sugar, black tea, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large mixing bowl to use with hand-held beaters). Mix on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes, until it becomes noticeably lighter and fluffier.
  3. Add the eggs one at a time with the mixer running on medium, pausing to scrape down the sides between each one. Add the vanilla. Once it smooths out, stop the mixer.
  4. Scrape down the sides again, add the flour mixture, and mix on low speed, stopping once it comes together and there are no dry patches. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and give it a couple folds to make sure it’s homogenous. Let it rest** in the fridge for 30 minutes, up to 48 hours.
  5. Preheat the oven to 350°F [180°C] while your dough chills, and line a few sheet pans with parchment.
  6. Mix together the sugar, cardamom, and black tea in a small mixing bowl.
  7. Scoop a 20g blob of cookie dough (1 heaping tablespoon), roll it around generously in the spiced sugar, roll it between your hands to make sure it adheres, roll it around in the sugar again, and roll it between your hands again.*** Move to the parchment-lined pan, and repeat with the remaining cookie dough. Leave 3 inches [7.5cm] gaps between them.
  8. Bake for about 12 minutes****, and slide the parchment out of the pans so they can cool on the parchment right on the counter.

Notes

* Use a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle to grind the tea. Feel free to use decaffeinated tea.

** If you’re in a rush, you can get away with skipping the rest, since chilling is not the primary goal of resting the dough here (they will still bake perfectly well without chilling). That being said, pretty much all cookie doughs benefit from resting. A refrigerated siesta allows the sugar and flour to hydrate, and results in very lovely (i.e., less grainy) texture. Thirty minutes is kind of a bare minimum, but if you’ve got time, feel free to let them rest even longer. Or if you absolutely must have at least a few snickerdoodles right away, try chilling at least half the dough to bake the next day, and see if you notice a difference.

*** At this point, you can place them on a parchment lined sheet pan (with just a tiny bit of room between each one), freeze the sheet pan, and then throw the frozen dough balls into a plastic bag in the freezer for longer term storage (if you’d like). You can bake right from frozen—just give them an extra minute or two.

**** Keep an eye on them. Twelve minutes in my calibrated oven works perfectly for cookies that are chewy in the center and crisp around the edges, but yours might differ. If you like crunchier cookies, go for another minute or two.

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Creamy Oatmeal

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I’m not one for making big splashy statements. But since oatmeal is probably the least splashy food of all time, maybe you’ll allow me just one. The way we have all decided to cook our oatmeal is not making us happy! We have turned oatmeal into a stodgy blob, and it is no longer living its best life. If you enjoy that gloopy texture, or if you’re already a fan of creamy oatmeal, you can totally sit this one out. I am not here to yuck your yum.

This post is for everyone who finds oatmeal to be a constant disappointment. So if oatmeal makes you feel as though your own personal malaise has somehow manifested in a non-newtonian fluid, this post is for you. Only 6% of folks in the US consume it (4% in the under 35 age bracket).

Oatmeal was never my personal favorite, until I started recreating the creamy oatmeal my grandmother makes. The technique is always super easy:

For silky-smooth and creamy oatmeal, use way more liquid than the side of the box tells you to.

Drown your oats with water and milk and simmer until they go from watery to velvety smooth. Then pour (yes, pour! not plonk!) some into a bowl and top with your favorite fruit. With stodgy/gloopy oats, the fruit pieces tend to perch atop the rock-hard surface like ducks on a frozen lake. But you’ll know you did something right when your fruit pieces gloriously nestle into the porridge.

what’s in this post

Before I get to my recipe, I’ve got a little intro to creamy oats:

  1. I’ll talk a bit about why I think rolled oats tend to be under-appreciated.
  2. I’ll also explain why I think some folks tend to be nervous about adding extra liquid.
  3. Finally I’ll share the details of this method.
  4. Or feel free to skip to the recipe if you’re already excited to try creamy oatmeal for yourself.
 

why rolled oats are under-appreciated

While steel cut oats have a pretty strong fan club, old fashioned rolled oats tend to go under-appreciated. I think that’s because folks often ask rolled oats to behave in a way that doesn’t play to their strengths. Here are a few ways I believe rolled oats are misunderstood:

1. You can’t replicate the chewy texture of steel cut oats in rolled oats:

Steel cut oats are a great idea if you’d like to really embrace the chew (though they are very versatile, and also work perfectly well in a silkier, creamier porridge). But old fashioned rolled oats are wonderful on their own terms, and are best made into a velvety, creamy porridge. Unfortunately, most recipes use way too little liquid in an attempt to create a steel-cut-adjacent texture. This results in a stodgy gloop. Best not to try to make your old fashioned oats behave as steel cut oats.

2. Overnight oats don’t deliver on their promises:

Some have tried to solve the mushy oatmeal texture problem by introducing an overnight soak for rolled oats. This supposedly retains their chew and texture. Full disclosure, the texture of overnight oats is just not for me (though again, not yucking your yum). But even if you enjoy overnight oats’ texture, you have to admit, they’re not exactly chewy. Rolled oats just can’t be expected to “retain” their chew, since they were never really chewy to begin with.

3. The ingredient ratios on the old fashioned rolled oat box are questionable:

This is the original sin, which led to the need for such interventions as overnight oats and chewy steel cut. Following the ingredient ratios on the box of rolled oats results in the gloopiest oatmeal texture ever, one that sets up even before it hits the bowl. There’s just not enough liquid.

If you don’t like oatmeal, it might just be because you’ve had it prepared this way. Again, I’m not here to tell you to stop enjoying something you love. But given oatmeal’s staggering unpopularity, as well as the entrenched status of this cooking method, I have to assume this method of preparation is not working for many people.

4. Instant oats give people watery oats anxiety, but “watery” is not the same as “smooth and creamy”:

Whenever I tell someone that I add a lot of liquid to my oats to make them super creamy, people often respond by saying “hmm, but wouldn’t that just make them super watery and mushy?” If you’ve ever had instant rolled oats steeped in boiling water or milk, you’re probably familiar with that watery/soggy texture. I’m pretty sure the soggy disaster of instant oats is the reason folks are afraid of adding more liquid to their old fashioned rolled oats. But this sets up a totally false dichotomy between watery/soggy oats and gloopy/stiff oats. There is a creamy alternative out there, which is nothing like either.

The bottom line: when cooking old fashioned rolled oats, always shoot for creamy and silky, rather than firm and chewy. When cooking steel cut oats, go for either firm and chewy or creamy and silky. And when cooking instant oats… maybe consider cracking open a box of pop tarts instead! (Save me a s’mores or strawberry one please!)

Edit (21 Aug 2024): Thanks to commenter, Chelsea, for pointing out that you can absolutely use instant oats with this recipe’s method to good results! I’ll never be a fan of instant oats steeped in hot water or milk. But they work really well cooked with this recipe’s method. Highly recommend if you’re looking for ultra-smooth custardy oatmeal.

oatmeal with strawberries

My favorite method of cooking rolled oats: 1 part oats to 4 parts liquid (by volume).

The key to perfect old fashioned rolled oats is to use about twice as much liquid as most recipes say to use. Most recipes (including oatmeal boxes) have you use a ratio of 1 part oats to 2 parts liquid by volume, but I much prefer 1 part oats to 4 parts liquid by volume (that’s about 1 part oats to 9 parts liquid by weight). Or if you don’t feel like doing the math, just follow the recipe at the end of this post.

If you’ve never made oatmeal this way, you’ll probably feel like you’ve made a huge mistake at first. Indeed, it looks like an awkwardly large amount of liquid for such a small amount of oats. It will look incredibly watery at first, like instant oats gone horribly wrong. But after about 15 minutes, its starches will swell and burst, a small amount of the liquid will cook off, and it will magically thicken into a velvety texture. It might still look slightly too thin, but it will set very slightly as it cools at the table.

As my grandmother would probably want me to remind you: Don’t forget that this method has fewer calories than thick gloopy oatmeal (depending on the kind of milk you use). So be generous with the serving size if you’re hungry. It’s very light, so you might want to eat a bigger bowl than usual if you like to start off your day with a big breakfast.

oatmeal simmering on the stove
macerated strawberries sitting on a jar in front of the stove

a world-wide love of creamy oatmeal:

This cooking method isn’t limited to just my family. Living in Hong Kong, I order porridge in cha chaan tengs, and it always shares the same texture as the oatmeal my Assyrian grandmother makes. When my sister visited Peru, her host families all cooked their oatmeal the exact same way. In Melbourne (where I live), porridge is on every brunch menu, and it’s always perfectly silky smooth, never gloopy (and often topped with rhubarb, *swoon*).

I also recently asked friends from our intersectional food writers’ facebook group, and we shared a similar experience of smooth and creamy oatmeal, having grown up in Indian, Filipino, Jewish, Puerto Rican, Korean, and Assyrian families (thanks Celeste, Nandita, Jessica, Caroline, Twilight, and everyone!).

how to top it:

The following recipe includes instructions for macerating strawberries, a really easy method for preparing a lightly sweetened fruit topping. You can macerate pretty much any fruit (especially peaches, plums, nectarines, other berries, etc.) by sprinkling them with a little sugar, and letting their juices accumulate in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (more like 24 hours is ideal). Use the syrup that collects sparingly (or generously!) as a little sweetener.

If you’re short on fresh ingredients, you can’t go wrong with cinnamon and brown sugar.

I packed some macerated berries, rolled oats, and dry milk on a camping trip a couple weeks ago, and we had such a lovely breakfast of porridge and coffee. I mostly brought the oatmeal for myself, but for lack of anything else to eat, Simon accepted a bowl of smooth and creamy oatmeal with a weary smile, and ever since, it’s become his new favorite breakfast. It was a fun turn of the tables, since Simon has always loved the outdoors, and I am a city mouse who has suddenly started to love camping after being cooped up indoors all year. It’s a good time to try something new!

oatmeal with strawberries in mugs in a picnic table, with 2 mugs of coffee, a pourover coffee maker, and a gingham-lidded jar
oatmeal with strawberries, from overhead, with coffee and a napkin around it
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Creamy Oatmeal

oatmeal with strawberries
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4.9 from 55 reviews

  • Author: Kathryn Pauline
  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Cook Time: 15 minutes
  • Total Time: 20 minutes
  • Yield: 2 large servings

Ingredients

for the oats:

  • ¾ cup old fashioned oats [75g]
  • 1½ cups water [355g]
  • 1½ cups your milk of choice* [355g]
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • Toppings (e.g., macerated fruit, chopped nuts, spices, etc.)

for the strawberries:

  • 8 oz container strawberries [225g]
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar [25g]
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon sumac (optional)
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. For the oats: Bring the oats, water, milk, and salt to a simmer in a small saucepan* over medium heat, stirring every minute or so. Once it comes to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid thickens and the oatmeal softens. It will start out watery, and at a certain point it will noticeably thicken (e.g., the bubbles will get bigger), while still remaining very pourable and creamy. Leave it uncovered the whole time, and be careful not to let it bubble over.
  2. Pour into bowls and let it cool off for a few minutes (it will thicken a little more after a couple minutes). Add your favorite toppings at the table (here, pictured with chopped walnuts and macerated strawberries).
  3. For the berries: Hull and quarter your strawberries, place in a jar along with brown sugar, cinnamon, sumac, and salt. Shake together until evenly coated, and place in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes, up to overnight.
  4. Spoon the berries and rendered syrup over your oats.

Notes

* Feel free to use whole cow’s milk, or any vegan milk. Coconut milk is one of the strongest tasting vegan milks, so only use it if you’d like some coconut flavor to come through (if you’re using coconut milk, use the kind from a carton in this recipe—you can use the kind from a can, but you need to water it down to turn it into something more like the kind in the carton).

** If you’re using a wide pan instead of a small saucepan, you may need to add a bit more water as it cooks (more water will evaporate from a wide pan).

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