Now through the month of February our Red Velvet

Cupcakes with Cream Cheese icing are only $12/dozen.

The holidays are upon us! For us, that has always meant a lot of time spent baking. This year we’d like to share our favorite holiday desserts with you, many of which come from treasured family recipes. Here’s what you can find on our menu this holiday season along with a little family baking history.

Poppy Seed Roll This traditional Eastern European pastry is a favorite to many. They are made of a moist and soft sweet bread and poppy seed filling. It’s the perfect balance of sweet & bitter (Don’t let bitter scare you off, it’s slight. And it’s the perfect compliment to the sugar in the poppy seed paste). Always made fresh but freeze very well.

We make these using a treasured family recipe from my late Great Grandmother, Rose Korchak. Over the years she achieved somewhat of a local celebrity status with these Eastern European pastries in her northeast Ohio community. Tom’s Country Place in Avon would purchase them from her to offer at special occasions they catered. For years she lovingly baked them to contribute to her church’s bake sales at SS. Cyril & Methodius in Lakewood, Ohio. She also had a large following of Lakewood’s finest (LPD) who regularly ordered rolls from her during the holidays. These have always been a much loved and appreciated staple at our family holiday gatherings. We just can’t imagine the holidays without them!

Pumpkin Roll: A delicious pumpkin cake rolled with a silky layer of sweetened cream cheese. Besides the wonderful taste, a pumpkin roll also promises a beautiful presentation on your holiday table. These also freeze very well

Pumpkin roll is another  holiday dessert from the family recipe book. This one is from my late Grandma Denger. All the women in my family took to making this dessert because it’s just too good not to. If you know me well enough you’ve probably enjoyed one of my pumpkin rolls at some point over the years. And if you know me very, very well I may have even given you the recipe;)

Kolache: Another wonderful pastry Great Grandma Korchak shared with us from her Slovak roots. A delicate and flakey pastry filled with apricot preserves (we make these too- not store bought!) and dusted with powdered sugar. Stay tuned, we will be adding more tasty fillings very soon.

Christmas Meringue Cookies & Sugar Cookies: We offer these year round but to get you into the spirit of the season we’re giving them a holiday makeover and dressing them up with red, green, and white sprinkles.

The meringues are another holiday cookie that brings back memories of generations past. They would be present at Great Grandma Korchak’s holiday gatherings but they were actually brought by her dear friend Elizabeth Antolik. She resided in the same bird town neighborhood in Lakewood, Ohio as Great Grandma’s mother and she was present at many of the Korchak Christmas gatherings over the years. She was referred to by my family as Teta (aunt in Slovak) and the meringues were always known as “Teta’s cookies.”

We wish everyone a happy & safe holiday season!

**For those managing peanut or tree nut allergies I know of nowhere else you would be able to find these products without the risk of cross-contamination. For example, places that make poppy seed rolls also make nut rolls. And places that make pumpkin rolls typically offer pumpkin rolls with nuts.

Lori Miles has been nice enough to display our SafeTees food allergy awareness t-shirts in her shop, The Littlest Details, in Avon. It’s a wonderful place to spend some time if you are looking for something unique for a child or expectant mother. Four out of the five shirts we offer are seen in this picture and they all caution others against feeding a small child. Thanks Lori, now we have one more reason to love your place!

This boutique first made it onto my radar when I was pregnant with my first child, Gianna. I don’t know what type of experience my mom had with the shop prior to my pregnancy, if any, but I swear she must have made a bee line straight to it when she received the good news. There for awhile it was a constant stream of unique clothes and nursery accessories. As soon as I spotted The Littlest Details bag I knew the next words out of my mouth would not be words but a moments worth of “awww’s” and “ohhhh’s.” We are thrilled to have a display in a place we’ve had such a fondness for over the last few years. It’s a truly unique shopping experience. You won’t find similar items elsewhere which is why we are thrilled to have our unique SafeTees on display here.

My daughter wears one of her allergy awareness t-shirts whenever she is away from home. At 3-years-old she has no memory of her first (and hopefully last) anaphylactic reaction. Thankfully, she doesn’t remember the terrifying drive to the ER or the adrenaline shots. At this point her understanding seems to go as far as “peanuts make me sick.” However, I’m fairly certain that this little piece of knowledge would go right out the window if some friendly person were to present her with some kind of sweet treat. Knowing this, I feel more comfortable when she is quickly recognized and remembered as the little girl with the food allergy because of her cautionary and cute shirt. SafeTees are not just for children with peanut and tree nut allergy. In designing them we kept in mind that any type of food allergy is important to recognize.

Even before we discovered Gianna had a food allergy I learned that people LOVE feeding small children. At first I had no idea why but I’ve since come up with two theories.

1) Grown-ups want the child to like them. What’s the fastest way to win her over? Sweet (often forbidden) treats of course!

2) Grown-ups want to be the first one to give her a certain food. I can’t really explain what’s behind this one because I don’t really get it myself but it probably ties in with #1 in some way. Maybe they are also hoping to get some type of funny facial reaction. Again, I’m not sure.

Once people feeding her went from an annoyance to life-threatening we made numerous changes. These t-shirts are a huge part of our food allergy safety strategy. You can order them on our merchandise page. We offer sizes 2T – 5/6. If you would like to take a closer look before ordering stop in to The Littlest Details at 36840 Detroit Road Old Avon, OH 44011 and tell them No ifs, ands, or nuts sent ya!

Welcome Fall! It seems most people I talk to are really looking forward to this fall thanks to this summer’s severe heat. Finally, a chance to give the AC’s (and our pocket books) a break and enjoy the outdoors more comfortably.

I always think of a good friend of mine this time of year because fall has always been her favorite season. It has always surprised me when anyone answered the question “what’s your favorite season?” with any response other than summer. To me, summer is the obvious answer. What’s not to love about summer, especially when you live in Ohio and endure such a long, cold winter? I think my choice of favorite season has more to do with my inability to live in the moment than the seasons themselves. Once fall arrives I have this annoying tendency to immediately start dreading winter (without a doubt my least favorite season). I often forget about what a beautiful season autumn really is- a welcomed transition between two sometimes severe seasons. Recently on a day when the sweltering temperatures gave way to a milder, more comfortable day and the family spent the entire day outside I thought to myself “Yeah, I get it. This is a great time of year.” I began thinking of all the great things that are just around the corner. Apple picking, clam bakes, Halloween, pumpkin patches, comfort food, the smell of leaves and campfires are just a few of the reason to love fall.

In honor of all the great things that the fall season has to offer (and my desire to live in the moment) we’ve created a S’more cupcake that is every bit as wonderful as the popular campfire treat. We fill our moist, delicious chocolate cupcake with marshmallow cream and layer it between a graham cracker crust and our classic vanilla buttercream icing. And because you can never have enough chocolate (especially when it comes to s’mores) we top it off with a drizzle of melted chocolate.

Order now! S’more cupcakes will only be available for the months of September and October. They are available by the dozen and are $18/dozen. One bite and you’ll definitely be craving s’more!

We love being out and about exploring so please share with us your favorite places to spend a fall day/night.

Hello! We are very excited to be a part of Ohio’s growing food allergy awareness network.

Please add our blog to your RSS feed, as we will be filling it with tons of useful information, resources, events, and the latest happenings here at No ifs, ands, or nuts. Our aim here is to be an all around family-friendly site, so in addition to topics related to food allergy we’ll also bring you recipes, Johnson family tested arts and crafts and anything else we think your family might find helpful or enjoyable.