Introduction to Crumbs.nd.Creams
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
The Journey to Crumbs.nd.Creams
After encouragement from loved ones, Requiron and her husband, Mharloe Requiron, 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,” Katrina Requiron said. “Can we handle it?”
The Opening of Crumbs.nd.Creams
Last month, Katrina 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.
The Menu and Preparation
Ube is one of the flan flavors the Requiron family offers at Crumbs.nd.Creams, 4825 N. Pulaski Road. 
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. Katrina 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 Shop’s Ambiance
A line for Crumbs.nd.Creams, 4825 N. Pulaski Road, stretched down the block on the shop’s grand opening Sept. 13, 2025. <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2-1024×576.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-929720" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2.png?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2.png?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2.png?resize=1536%2C864&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2.png?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/bcc-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2025/09/Silvana-Shop-Crumbs-nd-Creams-2.png?resize=900%2
