Quoting the cinematic masterpiece Magic Mike XXL, I’m a cookie cat. If presented with a dessert variety tray, I’d choose the cookie over cake (yes, even cheesecake), pie, or bars (including brownies).
The holiday season encourages bakers of all skill levels to break out their favorite recipes to the delight of friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. Imagine a holiday version of the famed wedding cookie table, piled high with classics like iced and decorated cutouts, peanut butter blossoms, and gingerbread.
This begs the question: what A-game holiday cookie would you add to this theoretical table? For me, it would be my Nana’s sand tarts. Every year, she would bake dozens of these delicate, yet crunchy treats and gift them to my dad and uncle. They were usually gone before New Year’s Eve.
Since my Nana’s passing, the women in my family have tried to recreate her recipe with little success. Well, not all the women — I would never dishonor her memory by making what I predict would be gluey, nasty abominations born from my abysmal baking ability and the ADHD type that makes it impossible to follow directions. A friend once volunteered to take them on and she nailed the flavor — one bite triggered sensory memories strong enough to squeeze tears from my eyes.
I asked notable Pittsburghers, including local TikTok celebrity Saxboybilly, WQED documentarian Rick Sebak, and others to fill this imaginary cookie table with their contributions, resulting in a festive, often nostalgic array of favorites baked by family members, bygone local businesses, and more.
Saxboybilly18
Pittsburgh TikToker
@saxboybilly18
Without question, it’d be get in a time machine and recreate the Christmas tree sugar cookie they had at Greb’s Bakery in the South Side Flats. [I was] spoiled growing up a block away from that place. They were big on holidays, the storefront still has the autumnal theme from when they closed, just trapped in time.
Rick Sebak
WQED documentarian youtube.com/@WQED
I make, usually, just one kind of cookie, based on my mother’s old typewritten recipe for Cowboy Cookies. During the pandemic, I made a fundraising program for WQED from my front porch titled A HO HO HO Healthy Holidays Hodgepodge and it included a segment about my cookies from my kitchen in Regent Square.
Rachael Rennebeck and John Chamberlin
Co-hosts of YaJagoff podcast
yajagoff.com
Rachael’s cookie: When it comes to Italian family recipes, there is always the term “the way WE do it.” So, the pizzelle is no exception. Oh, except that both my husband and me have Italian mommas, so how do nona and nunny manage to each be rockstars at the pizzelle game? Nona’s trick could be the fact that she uses vanilla and no anise, but the must-have is the cast iron pizzelle maker that has been passed down for decades. The simplicity of butter, flour, baking powder, sugar, and eggs make her pizzelles a family fave.
Nunny uses anise and tops off her perfectly thin pizzelle with powdered sugar. The namesake simply means “flat and round” in Italian, and nunny makes sure they each look like snowflakes on a tray. Either version is anticipated and devoured, no Italian showdown necessary! But it may serve as the perfect YaJagoff Question of the day: anise or vanilla in your pizzelle?
John’s cookie: Marie Cersosimo’s Italian chocolate spice cookies. It has all of the basics of a chocolate “drop cookie” with the added touch of allspice. The dough becomes very gooey, requiring, as Mrs. C. suggested, keeping your palms coated with oil to make the teaspoon-sized balls that are placed on the baking pan. Marie Cersosimo, in her 80s, used to make these for John. She could never figure out how he burned up two portable mixer motors and broke two spatulas when he made them for the first time.
Sean Collier
Writer/comic/theater producer/wrestling announcer seancollier.net
My late grandmother used to produce these massive trays of cookies. It seemed like there were a hundred varieties; there were probably less than a dozen, but it felt like a cornucopia. The tray would be sitting on a sideboard, covered in Saran wrap; when the wrap came off, I dashed to gather as many of these chocolate-peanut butter things as possible. I don’t know what they were; it was a one-inch-by-one-inch square with peanut butter on the bottom and some kind of baking chocolate on the top. I wish I had the recipe (or could cook). I can taste them just thinking about them.
This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2024.
