Generations of Hands Bake Up Holiday Dessert Recipes

Tucked in a corner of Pittsburgh’s Northside, three generations across two families prepare holiday dessert recipes to celebrate together. Donning their Sunday best and kicking the snow off their boots at the doorway, young hands join old to turn flour, sugar, butter, egg, and molasses into a wonderland of sweets that will be stacked atop the dining table – a collage of colors and textures – and enjoyed by all. 

A family and a young girl gather around a table full of holiday dessert recipes.

Generations of Hands Bake Up Holiday Dessert Recipes 

The air outside is cold and a dusting of snow has settled on the windowsills and on the bench just outside of the Second Empire brick beauty where the families gather, but sun pours into the arched windows and catches on a skinny evergreen drenched in tinsel. All is bright. Bringing to mind the family party scene of The Nutcracker, this city dwelling with mansard roof is a just-right setting for holiday hoopla. White paper snowflake garlands kid-crafted from wax paper bags bought at Schorin’s and bowls of orange clementines provide a simple decor.   

A woman rolls out cookie dough as a young girl in green socks sits beside her.

The dessert table menu runs a spectrum of simple comfortable recipes that beg for small assistants in the kitchen -like woodland creature gingerbread cookies and pine bough sugar cookies (made with a few clever icing strokes atop a repurposed oak leaf cookie cutter) – to impressive favorites, like the White Christmas Pie. “Mimi’s mama, Mummum, would make White Christmas Pie only once a year for the family’s Christmas Eve dinner. For that reason, it was an anticipated treat we all looked forward to and there was a bit of magic in that,” says pie-maker and grandmother, Cynthia Hohman.

A woman dusts powdered sugar over a table full of white holiday cookies.

More Than Just Baking Together 

In the kitchen, the steady hand of Cynthia’s daughter, Lauren, guides her nephew’s rolling pin over some gingerbread cookie dough. For Cynthia, “Baking with kids is timeless.” Picture gnarled, lined hands next to smooth, plump fingers pinching and patting cookie dough. As a grandparent, the baking experience has been one go-to activity that can be shared with no generational boundaries. “I have 11 grandchildren whose hobbies and interests are wide and varied, and none of them, over the years, have refused an invitation to put on an apron, push up their sleeves, and share an afternoon in the kitchen with me. Sure, sometimes it takes six tries cracking an egg to separate the white from the yoke. But, we are laughing and loving the moment.”

Two adults help a young boy roll out gingerbread dough with a rolling pin on a brown table coated in flour.

Here and in many homes, tradition runs deeper than the food served. Though, it manifests as practices shared, then passed through generations. The kitchen is an optimal setting for common ground and shared goals between generations. A universal language that provides connection to roots, cultural identity, freedom, artistry, self-sufficiency and empowerment. 

A group of people cheers champagne glasses over a table.

 A Little Something for the Adults Too

While shapes expand in the hot oven, Christen Russo pours festive beverages for her parents, Carole and Rich. Out comes a Cranberry Whiskey Cocktail with sugared cranberries to set the mood. For the kids, none can resist hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, mini– marshmallows and peppermint, served in small snow-white creature mugs reserved for just this special occasion, animal tails wrapped into handles. Sisters Lorelei and Una Russo cautiously sip theirs on the back staircase, giddy at the prospect of all those sweets.   

Two young girls sit on steps while their family gathers in the background.

The dining table dons desserts while the smell of ginger and allspice is still heavy in the air. The dimpled chin of Una rests on the table, taking inventory of the sweets. Also on the menu this evening – a dazzling Cream Puff Tower with spun sugar, a powder-sugar-dusted Spiced Mascarpone Cranberry Cake, dainty Meringue Stars, and stacked Rosemary Butter Cookies.

A woman drizzles glaze over a holiday dessert recipe for cake holes.

First, a toast – champagne is poured into delicate stemware tied with thin black velvet ribbon and the group, buzzing more on good company than sugar, instinctively gathers around the grand piano in the parlor. Gingerbread animals with cinnamon candy noses parade across the keys where Una is seated next to her father. The next best thing to baking with family? A rousing chorus with the ones you love. A Beatles’ classic, Martha, My Dear, rings out with enthusiastic piano accompaniment by Guy Russo.

A man sits at a piano with a young girl beside him as the rest of his family surround him.