Mariska Hargitay Says Taylor Swift's Sourdough Cookies on the SVU Set May Be the Best She's Had

Mariska Hargitay said Taylor Swift arrived on the "Law & Order: SVU" set with a box of homemade sourdough chocolate chip cookies that may be the best she has eaten, and that the baking was how the pop star opened a day of filming their Emmy sketch.

"Taylor Swift showed up on the set of SVU with a box this big of sourdough chocolate chip cookies, and I was so blown away because she made them, and they might have been the best cookies I've ever had, and it was extraordinary," Hargitay, 62, told People on Wednesday at the opening of NBC's "Dun Dun Diner." "So that's how she opened."

The sketch aired Sept. 14, with Hargitay hosting the Emmys and playing Olivia Benson as a team tried to determine whether Swift would appear. Swift, 36, played a rookie detective and joked about fans hunting for clues. Her cat, also named Olivia Benson, was in the bit. The shoot was pretaped.

Hargitay said the set felt easy. "We just had such a great time, and it was so cozy and familiar, and she's such a pro, and she was such a great sport to do anything and everything," she said. "It's so collaborative and so good." She added, "She's such a good actor and so charming and charismatic. It was such a thrill for everybody — not only obviously me and the cast, but for everybody, the entire crew. She is extraordinary."

Kelli Giddish, who plays Amanda Rollins, described the same Sunday on the "3rd Hour of Today." "First of all, it was like the Pope was coming," she said. "We did it very on the DL on a Sunday with just the skeleton crew. The writers for the Emmys were our background." Swift, she said, was glad to be there. "She's such a fan of the show. She was like, 'You guys, seriously, I'm so excited to be here.' We were like, 'We're excited you're here!' And we just had fun."

Giddish's cookie note was more specific than Hargitay's. "They were sourdough brown butter chocolate chip cookies," she said. "They were so good." On the Sept. 22 episode of the "Women in Entertainment" podcast she had already said, "I'm kind of a cookie snob, so I was really pleased."

Swift has made a habit of the gift. She gave Jimmy Fallon a loaf labeled "Loaf of a Doughgirl" after "The Life of a Showgirl," Greg James a lemon-blueberry sourdough marked "The Fate of Doughphelia," and Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco bread inscribed "It's a loaf story." Her husband, Travis Kelce, has joked that he broke one of her chairs after gaining weight on the bread. The SVU box was cookies, not a loaf, and it landed before a camera day rather than after a radio visit.

The sketch was the cameo. The quotes that have followed are about the tin. Hargitay's "best I've ever had" and Giddish's "cookie snob" are the reviews. Swift has not posted the recipe.