ALBANY PARK — While many people baked sourdough bread during lockdown in 2020, Katrina Requiron dove into making silvanas, or Filipino sandwich cookies, for her family and friends.

The silvanas — made with crunchy cashew meringue wafers and a buttercream filling and coated in cookie crumbs — were a hit, Requiron said.

“It’s kind of like [a sister cookie] to macaroons,” Requiron said.

Silvanas are Filipino sweet sandwich cookies made with crunchy cashew meringue wafers and a buttercream filling and coated in cookie crumbs. Credit: Provided

After encouragement from loved ones, Requiron and her husband, Mharloe, began selling their homemade silvanas to people around the Chicago area, often meeting in places like the Seafood City Supermarket parking lot in North Mayfair for dessert dropoffs.

They’ve also sold silvanas at pop-up markets, Filipino events and places like Kanin, a Hawaiian-Filipino eatery in Ravenswood, they said.

“Most of our friends and customers have been telling us and giving us advice [to] open the store … but we were scared,” Requiron said. “Can we handle it?”

Last month, Requiron and her family took a leap of faith and opened the doors to their own brick-and-mortar shop, Crumbs.nd.Creams, in Albany Park. It’s the city’s first silvana house.

Crumbs.nd.Creams, 4825 N. Pulaski Road, is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday.

When the shop officially opened Sept. 13, there was already a line outside. The North Side neighborhood has a strong Filipino community, and it’s where most of their longtime customers reside, said the Requirons, who live in suburban Algonquin.

Ube is one of the flan flavors the Requiron family offers at Crumbs.nd.Creams, 4825 N. Pulaski Road. Credit: Provided

During the first week of business, the couple made about 1,500 cookies per day — alongside batches of flan — with the help of their coworkers, including their kids, Sophia and Jaden, who help out sometimes when they’re not in school.

Requiron learned her classic silvana recipe from her grandmother, and she’s added 10 other flavors to the menu by experimenting on her own: blueberry, ube, matcha, mocha, nutteryana, butter pecan, Nutella, coconut jam, flan and buko pandan.

The Requiron family’s friends would taste each flavor and let them know if it was good enough to sell, they said.

“We don’t release new flavors without them approving it,” Requiron said. “One of the flavors that I always told everyone made me cry was the mocha because it’s … more of a Filipino mocha. So we have to get it just right where Filipinos are very familiar to it. … They sent me back maybe five times because I just couldn’t get it right.”

Making silvanas can be tedious, taking about a week of preparation, Requiron said. That’s because the couple whips up their own buttercream and ube jam, and they roast and grind cashews for the crumbs.

The cookies also have to be frozen for at least 24 hours to achieve the proper consistency.

It’s a lot of labor — but a lot of love, too, the couple said.

A line for Crumbs.nd.Creams, 4825 N. Pulaski Road, stretched down the block on the shop’s grand opening Sept. 13, 2025. Credit: Provided

Much of the shop is also constructed by hand, including wooden shelving along the walls, which Requiron cut and put together, she said.

Artificial plants and florals around the shop remind Requiron of her uncle’s home in the Philippines. It had a fence that “overflowed” with flowers, she said.

“When [my friends] came here, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, this feels like your house,’” Requiron said. “That’s what I was going for.”

While the couple was nervous for their grand opening — and so busy with putting the shop together that they neglected marketing, they said — they were warmly welcomed by the neighborhood, they said. There was a line down the block when the shop opened that morning, and they sold out of silvanas that Saturday and Sunday.

“Driving here, I was nervous,” Mharloe said. “Then the moment I pulled up, there was a line already. I was just in awe, and I had low-key tears … just seeing that support that we have from our OG customers, the new customers, the neighbors here.

“That was the most rewarding feeling I ever felt that Saturday.”

The team behind Chicago’s first silvana house, Crumbs.nd.Creams, 4825 N. Pulaski Road. Credit: Provided

The couple is also excited to share Filipino culture and food with even more people, especially those who aren’t very familiar with it, he said.

“The best part is that we get to introduce to not just our Filipino community, but now spreading it to every ethnicity that’s not familiar,” Mharloe said. “That is our main goal. I mean, we love our Filipino community, but we want to introduce this to others.”

While the turnaround for the shop has been quick — they signed the lease just three months ago in June — they’re already thinking of ways to grow the business. The couple hopes to start shipping silvanas next year, though keeping them frozen during the journey can be difficult.

“How thankful we are to the community, to our fans, our supporters, our friends, our families,” Mharloe said. “They have backed us up in everything. … Just very thankful and blessed that everyone is here, has showed up and showed out.”

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