Nut-free doughnuts
Son’s food allergies inspire mom to start doughnut business
Caitie Maharg decided to become a professional chef when she was a 10-yearold brain cancer patient who hated hospital food.
Two decades later, she decided to cook gluten-free, nut-free, vegan treats when her young son was diagnosed with multiple life-threatening food allergies. Maharg wanted Isaiah, now 4, to be able to enjoy the same goodies as other children. Particularly doughnuts.
Her wish has evolved into No Nuts Donuts, a small business that sells doughnuts online and at a farmers market in Toano. Maharg also plans pop-up bakeries with sweets such as cheese Danish pastries, cinnamon rolls, lemon bars, Pop Tarts and Whoopie pies. None contain dairy, eggs, nuts or gluten.
“Parents have told me, ‘I’m so grateful because my kid has never gotten to taste a doughnut before,’ ” Maharg said. “But it’s not just kids. There are lots of adults out there with celiac disease and other allergies who have gone years without eating any of this stuff.”
Maharg, 34, makes more than 15 flavors of cake and yeast doughnuts at her James City County home, including glazed, blueberry, apple cider, pumpkin streusel, maple bacon, toasted graham cracker and s’mores. She also sells doughnut holes.
Isaiah is her helper and taste-tester. Isaiah is allergic to eggs, dairy, wheat, gluten, peanuts and tree nuts and has eosinophilic esophagitis, a chronic immune disorder that causes dangerous inflammation in the esophagus in reaction to allergens.
“Happy,” Isaiah said about how he feels baking with his mom.
And his favorite type of doughnut? “A big one.”
No Nuts Donuts started last March and has taken off quickly. Maharg sold 1,780 doughnuts and 128 dozen doughnut holes last year despite her and her husband, Nathan, being busy adopting their second child, a baby girl named Phoebe.
But Maharg learned about perseverance early in life. The youngest of four siblings raised in Waynesboro, she still remembers the moment she was diagnosed with a tumor on her pituitary gland, which produces hormones critical to bodily functions. Maharg answered the phone call from the doctor who had her brain MRI results.
“He asked for my dad, but I knew from his voice that something was really wrong,” she remembered. “I knew things were going to change.”
Physicians had originally misdiagnosed Maharg’s constant thirst as diabetes insipidus, a hormonal disorder that causes fluid imbalances in the body. Instead, she needed brain surgery, six months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation treatments.
Maharg struggled with severe nausea and fatigue and lost her hair when she started the sixth grade. School administrators bent the dress
code to allow her to wear a hat. Oncologists also warned her parents that the cancer treatments could permanently damage their daughter’s IQ.
“Turns out, nothing hampered Caitie at all,” said Maharg’s father, Lee Paixão. She actually graduated from school a year early.
“It definitely made me who I am today,” Maharg agreed. “I take nothing in life for granted.”
When she was isolated during her recovery, Maharg began watching cooking shows and trying to replicate recipes. As a high school freshman, she spent her Saturdays interning with the executive chef at the Boar’s Head Resort in Charlottesville.
Maharg initially came to Williamsburg for a 6,000-hour culinary apprenticeship at Kingsmill Resort, graduating in 2010. Back in Waynesboro, she launched a business called BlueOregano that offered gourmet pop-up dinners, catering and cooking classes.
In 2021, Maharg and her family moved to James City County where her parents and older sister had moved. By then, she and her husband were raising Isaiah.
Adopted as a baby, Isaiah screamed and arched his back in pain each time Maharg fed him formula. He later developed severe eczema, and once he started solid foods, he frequently coughed as if he was choking and regurgitated his meals.
Isaiah’s blood allergy test “just lit up with how many things he is allergic to,” Maharg said. An endoscopy and biopsy at 14 months confirmed eosinophilic esophagitis, which can damage the tube between the mouth and stomach and cause difficulty swallowing, vomiting and loss of appetite.
Eosinophilic esophagitis, or EOE, is a lifelong condition, although an injectable medication to reduce inflammation is available to patients 12 and older. Maharg hopes the treatment will be approved soon for younger kids. For now, the family closely monitors Isaiah’s diet and keeps EpiPens handy to block the progression of any severe allergic reaction.
Maharg started tweaking recipes of her childhood favorites for her son from apple pie to goldfish-shaped cheese crackers. She occasionally tried them out on her parents and siblings.
About a year ago, Maharg’s sister, Chiara Carroll, called raving about a batch of doughnuts that her three allergyfree children had wolfed down. Carroll encouraged Maharg to start a business.
“When I was a kid, I told my parents that I wanted to be a chef to bring joy to people,” Maharg said. “I thought, ‘Well, this is a way I can do that.’ ”
Maharg cuts dough for yeast doughnuts by hand and cooks them in a small countertop fryer in her kitchen. Cake doughnuts bake in her oven.
On each box, Maharg places a sticker that reads “Isaiah 41:10,” the Bible verse that inspired her son’s name. Her childhood pastor gave her the verse — in which God reminds followers that he will always be with them — when he took her out for ice cream after her cancer diagnosis.
Maharg hopes to open a brick-and-mortar bakery though some of her happiest moments are watching her boy dig into sweets at home.
“Isaiah’s smiles are so beautiful,” she said. “He inspires me every day.”