I, A Regular Person, Baked 5 Celebrities' Cookies. Here's Whose Recipe Was The Best.

Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama, Snoop Dogg, John Legend and The Rock — who's the big winner?

Every year when the holidays roll around, lifestyle publications tout celebrity cookie recipes as if they’re the end-all, be-all. Gorgeously shot photos of cookies that were baked by food stylists make them look perfect and glamorous, even though they came from celebrities who usually have no background in professional baking.

But what do those cookies look like in the actual light of day, when they’re baked by a regular person like you or me? I tested five popular recipes to see. I shared the cookies with friends, family, and neighbors to get their input, too. Here are my notes on the recipes I would make again.

Michelle Obama’s Award-Winning Cookies

Starting in 1992 until the magazine folded in 2016, Family Circle magazine sponsored a recipe showdown between the incumbent first lady and the opponent’s spouse. The cookie poll had an uncanny ability to predict the winner of the presidential election — it was only wrong once, when Bill Clinton’s Clinton family chocolate chip cookies bested Melania Trump’s sour cream star cookies in 2016.

In 2012, Michelle Obama’s Mama Kaye’s white and dark chocolate cookies beat Ann Romney’s M&M cookies, and Barack Obama went on to win the White House. More than a decade later, the recipe still has many devotees.