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Mass. baker goes viral with cookies for Taylor Swift’s Foxboro suite

The baker from Walpole got the call on Tuesday to make cookies for Taylor Swift's suite ahead of the Patriots vs. Chiefs game Sunday. "I was so excited to do it.”

By Katelyn Umholtz

December 18, 2023

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It had seemed like a normal NFL Sunday in 2023: The Patriots lost, and Taylor Swift showed up to another Kansas City Chiefs game with members of her squad to support boyfriend and tight-end Travis Kelce.

But for Debbie Butters, owner of Coco Butters Cookies and a Walpole resident, it was anything but. The former Patriots cheerleader has baked cookies as a business since 2016, sometimes for clientele in sports and entertainment. In fact, she was hired recently by Gillette Stadium to decorate cookies for the Tom Brady home opener game in September.

But Swift, one of the most recognizable names in the world, is without a doubt Butters’s most famous customer. 

“The woman who had hired me to do the Tom Brady home opener and (Army vs. Navy game) cookies reached out to me on Tuesday, and she was like, ‘I know it’s last-minute… if you can squeeze it in,’” Butters said. “Of course I could. I was so excited to do it.”

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She used her signature sugar cookie recipe — one she said she developed herself because too many decorated cookie recipes looked better than they tasted — as she does for all her clients.

Sometimes she has instructions for how she should decorate the cookies, but for the sweet treats that would feed Swift’s suite at Gillette Stadium, Butters had free rein.

So Butters, who said she’s a Swift fan, had some fun with the baked goods, pulling from more current Swift references or decorating cookies with things Swift likes — for example, cats. 

In fact, all three of Swift’s cats got a shoutout on the backs of No. 13 jerseys (seemingly a mention of her Dec. 13 birthday). One cookie celebrated Swift’s most recent achievement of being named TIME Person of the Year, and there was even a cookie design that was a nod to a playful “Karma” lyric change about Kelce during the Eras Tour.

“I tried to make it so it wasn’t just generic Taylor Swift,” Butters said. “I tried to make it super personal and relevant.”

Brittany Mahomes, wife of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, even shared one of Butters’s cookies to her Instagram account — specifically the one that said “Dads, Brads, and Chads,” a reference to something Swift said during her TIME interview when asked about some NFL fans complaining about her presence at games. 

“I’m just there to support Travis,” she said. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”

Mahomes’s cookie photo is now Coco Butters’s profile picture on Instagram.

The news of Butters’s Swift cookies has resulted in an outpouring of support from friends and family, she said. It’s even given her a “little street cred” when it comes to her five children, she joked. 

Butters said she can only hope that Swift may use her services again in the near future, even flirting with the idea that the world’s biggest pop star may need “engagement” cookies soon enough.

“I hope more people become aware of my business, and I would love to be able to do more orders and bigger orders,” Butters said. “I would love to make cookies for Taylor Swift again, if her and her Kansas City boy ever decide to tie the knot. I would hope she would let me make at least her engagement cookies.”