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About These Thai Tea Cookies

These delicious Thai tea cookies are surprisingly easy to make at home—no stand mixer required! Although the recipe instructs you to make two doughs, they come together quickly by hand. All you need are a few bowls and a spatula, making the recipe approachable for beginners.

These cookies are based on my tried and tested Perfectly Chewy Drop Sugar Cookies. After infusing the butter with both Thai tea and condensed milk, the dough bakes into a classic drop cookie texture. Think: soft and chewy centers, crispy edges on every cookie, all flavored with the perfect combination of Thai tea and condensed milk.

Looking for more unique cookie recipes with Asian flavors? Check out these internet-famous Ube Crinkle Cookies (one of the most popular recipes on Hummingbird High)!

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My Ingredient Recommendations

To make these Thai Tea cookies extra flavorful and striking, you need a handful of specialty ingredients:

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Making The Cookies (With Pictures To Help You Make Them Perfectly)

Making The Thai Tea Butter

01p_thai-tea-cookies_IMG_4791-728x1092 Swirled Thai Tea Cookies with Condensed Milk » Hummingbird High — First, make the Thai tea butter by melting the butter and adding the Thai tea leaves. I like to add the leaves on the early side, when the butter is still partially melted, to give the tea extra time to steep into the butter.

Assembling The Swirled Thai Tea Cookies

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04p_thai-tea-cookies_IMG_4795-728x1092 Swirled Thai Tea Cookies with Condensed Milk » Hummingbird High — This is what the Condensed Milk and Thai Tea cookie doughs look like when they’re ready to be scooped and assembled.

My Best Recipe Tips To Set You Up For Success

Let’s Talk About Butter (For the Detail-Oriented Bakers)

The Condensed Milk Dough uses 3 Tablespoons (1.5 ounces or 43 grams) of butter, while the Thai Tea Dough uses ¾ cup (6 ounces or 170 grams) unsalted butter. Eagle-eyed bakers probably noticed that this is an annoying quantity. Why?

A stick of butter contains 4 ounces (113 grams) of butter. Between both doughs, this recipe uses a total of 7.5 ounces of butter… just shy of 2 (4-ounce) sticks of butter. That means if all goes well, you’ll have a stupid amount—exactly 1 Tablespoon (.5 ounces or 14 grams) of butter left.

Don’t write off this tiny pat! You’ll likely need it to round up your Thai tea butter. My recipe instructs you to melt butter and Thai tea leaves together, then strain the butter from the leaves. The leaves like to absorb a LOT of butter (usually around a ¼-cup’s worth). If you aren’t aggressive enough about straining out the butter from the tea leaves, you’ll likely come up short of the ½ cup of butter needed for the Thai tea dough. So reserve this “leftover” Tablespoon of butter to help you out if this happens!

Flavormaxxxing The Thai Tea In These Cookies

When developing this recipe, I ran into a major problem (that I still didn’t really resolve). No matter how much math I did, I could not get the yields of the Sweetened Condensed Milk Dough and the Thai Tea Dough to match! I would always end up with either too much Condensed Milk or Thai Tea doughs. That meant making a couple oddly proportioned cookies that were either all Thai tea flavored with no condensed milk swirl, or cookies with not enough Thai tea and too much condensed milk dough.
I settled on a recipe that makes 10 “large” 4-Tablespoon sized cookies made from 1 Condensed Milk and 3 Thai Tea dough balls. However, this recipe does give you a weird “leftover” medium, 3-Tablespoon sized cookie made of 1 Thai Tea and 2 Condensed Milk dough balls. Call it the secret bonus baker’s cookie (not pictured in the photos, because I ate mine)!
If you want “smaller” medium sized cookies, you can also make 14 “medium” 3-Tablespoon sized cookies made from 1 Condensed Milk and 2 Thai Tea dough balls. You’ll end up making 12 perfectly swirled Thai Tea cookies with condensed milk. However, this method leaves 6 Thai tea dough balls, or exactly enough for 2 all Thai Tea 3-Tablespoon sized cookies. If you go this route, check for doneness earlier at 10 minutes instead of 11!

Get the Recipe:
Swirled Thai Tea Cookies with Condensed Milk

Prep: 10 minutes

Cook: 30 minutes

Bake Time: 11 minutes

Total: 51 minutes

Servings: 10 cookies

Bring the flavors of Thai iced tea into a soft, chewy cookie! These swirled Thai tea cookies combine doughs infused with real Thai tea leaves and sweetened condensed milk—easy to make by hand, no mixer required. Perfect for tea lovers and cookie fans alike.

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For the Sweetened Condensed Milk Cookie Dough

For the Thai Tea Cookie Dough

First, make the Thai tea butter. In a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter over low heat, about 10 minutes. Once the cubes have partially melted, add the Thai tea. Stir regularly to prevent the butter from getting too hot—at no point should the butter sizzle, crackle, or pop. Once the butter has completely melted, turn off the heat but keep the saucepan on the stovetop. The butter and tea will continue steeping on low heat as you make the Condensed Milk Dough.
Make the Condensed Milk Dough. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt to make the dry ingredients for the Condensed Milk Dough. In a medium bowl, use a rubber spatula to mix together the melted butter, sugar, and condensed milk for the Condensed Milk Dough until moistened, about 1 minute. Add the egg yolk and mix until combined.Gradually mix in the dry ingredients until just combined.
Strain the Thai Tea Butter. Place a fine mesh sieve over a liquid measuring cup Pour the Thai tea butter into the cup.Use a rubber spatula to press the tea leaves against the sieve, straining out as much butter from the tea leaves as possible. You should have ½ cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) of Thai tea butter. You may need to add the reserved 1 Tablespoon (.5 ounces or 14 grams) of unsalted butter.
Make the Thai Tea Dough. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to make the dry ingredients for the Thai tea dough.In a medium bowl, use a rubber spatula to mix together the Thai tea butter and sugar for the Thai tea dough until moistened, about 1 minute. Add the egg and orange food coloring and mix until combined.Gradually mix in the dry ingredients until just combined.
Prep the cookies for shaping. Use a 1-Tablespoon cookie dough scoop to portion the Condensed Milk Dough into 12 balls. Wipe down the inside of the cookie dough scoop with a paper towel, then use the scoop to portion the Thai Tea Dough into 30 balls.
Shape the cookies. Take 3 Thai Tea cookie dough balls and 1 Condensed Milk cookie dough ball and press them gently together. Roll between your palms (like you would a ball of Play-Doh) for a few seconds to combine the dough.
Refrigerate the cookie dough balls overnight. Loosely cover the cookie dough balls with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to bake the cookies, defrost the cookies, and prep the oven and baking pans. Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator and set on the counter to thaw slightly while you preheat the oven.Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two half sheet pans with parchment paper.
Bake the cookies. Bake one pan at a time for 11 minutes, or until the edges have set but the centers are still gooey.Cool the cookies on the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, or until the edges and bottoms of the cookies have set and feel firm to the touch.Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
Serve and store. Serve warm or at room temperature. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container or zip-top bag at room temperature for up to 3 days.

I like to bake the cookies one pan at a time. I find that doing so makes the best cookies, ensuring that none of them have overly burnt bottoms or raw centers. However, to save time, you can bake two sheet pans at a time. Position a rack in the upper-third position of the oven, and a second one in the lower-third position of the oven. Bake a pan on each rack, swapping their positions half way through the Bake Time.
Uh oh! Did your cookies come out puffier than expected? Check out my troubleshooting guide on How To Fix Puffy Cookies (And Other Cookie Baking Fails)!
You can freeze the Thai Tea cookies in the following ways:
1. Freeze the UNBAKED cookie dough.
  Follow the recipe instructions to make the cookie dough and scoop them out into cookie dough balls. Place the cookie dough balls in a small sheet pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1 hour, or until the cookie dough balls are frozen solid. Transfer the cookie dough balls to a zip-top bag and freeze for up to 1 year.
  To bake the frozen cookie dough balls, line sheet pans with parchment paper and position the cookie dough balls at least 3 inches apart on the sheet pans. Then, follow the recipe instructions to preheat the oven. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the edges have set but the centers are still gooey.
2. Freeze the BAKED cookies.
  Individually wrap any leftover cookies in two layers of plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil. The aluminum foil will prevent the cookies from absorbing any other flavors or odors in the freezer. When ready to serve, transfer to the refrigerator to chill overnight. Rewarm in the microwave or in the oven at 350°F for 5 minutes before serving.