The Itinerant Bakers of Hawai’i Island
Devany Vickery-Davidson Photos by Devany Vickery-Davidson

If you are at the Big Island’s Waimea Town Farmers’ Market at Parker School on Saturdays, the scent of bread baking in a wood-burning oven pulls you to the north corner. You can see the lines of people waiting for bread the minute you walk into the market. There is bread there—not your momma’s loaves, but artisan breads being baked as you wait for them to come out of the oven. This is bread worth waiting in line for. Free samples, including butter, are also available.

Hawai’i Island has its own traveling bakers: Kay and Kevin Cabrera of the Sandwich Isle Bread Company. It all started 24 years ago when Kevin and Kay had a little shop in Hilo called Kay’s Creations, which specialized in wedding cakes. Fast forward a few years and Kevin was a resort chef, working at the high-end resorts of the Kohala Coast. After putting in his time at various chef stations, he found that his passion was bread baking. In time, he became baker chef at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, where he also serviced the Hapuna Beach Prince, the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and both United Airlines and Aloha Airlines with various products.

A year ago, while working as baker chef for the Fairmont Orchid, he decided it was time to dedicate his life to his passion of baking artisan breads the way they were baked in more ancient times: with a wood-fired oven. As he puts it, “After 20 years and 2.5 million hotel dinner rolls, I wanted to get back to baking bread that was more satisfying,
for me and for people who love a loaf of fresh-baked artisan bread on the table.”

Kevin and Kay went to the mainland to the first Kneading Conference in Maine in 2007. There, Kevin was able to bake in a domeshaped wood-burning oven and was immediately smitten. After returning to Hawai’i, he invested in a wood-burning oven kit that could be made portable and with the help of friends and local craftsmen Kevin’s dream came true:The Sandwich Isle Bread Company was born. He now has the island’s only portable wood-burning oven. It sits on a trailer and can be rotated in any direction to fit site requirements. Kevin cuts his own wood, using mostly kiawe, which is in the mesquite family. He also has a commercial kitchen for prepping and mixing dough.

Kevin bakes a large variety of breads each week, and sells out at every market. He also sells frozen pizza dough in both whole wheat and white at the Parker School market.

I spent a morning at the Parker School market with Kevin and watched him fire his oven, clean it out and then start baking. Because we are celebrating pineapple in this issue of EHI, he and I made fresh pineapple pizzas before he put his breads in the ovens. I brought some sauce, fresh pineapple from my garden, Thai basil, caramelized onions
and a mix of five Italian cheeses; Kevin assembled and baked the pizzas. Kevin does not normally make pizzas at the farmers’ markets, but he does do great on-site pizza parties, making over 100 pizzas at a clip.

Also in honor of the pineapple, Kay provided a very special recipe of hers for our readers: a pineapple French toast recipe that can be made the night before, wrapped and allowed to soak refrigerated overnight, then be topped and baked the following morning. It is a good way to use Sandwich Isle Bread Company breads

The artisan loaves are mixed in the bakery kitchen and then put into proofing baskets to rise while the oven is being fired up. It takes a few hours for the fire to heat the interior of the oven to over 600°. It can then bake for a few hours because the interior of the oven retains the heat. This means for a morning market, Kevin’s day starts quite early.

After the loaves have risen, Kevin slices a few strips on the top of the loaves to allow them to rise evenly, and then he loads the breads using a peel, a flat wooden device with a coating of semolina flour to prevent sticking.

The loaves are then baked quickly and Kevin rotates them around the oven, because ofits hot spots. There are also hot spots on Kevin’s arms: Frequent burns are unavoidable for someone who frequently sticks his arms into a 600° oven, even with protection. Unlike baking in a home oven the breads bake in a much shorter time, since they are
baked directly on the floor of the oven. They both rise and develop a beautiful crust quickly in the wood-burning oven. Individual loaves are taken out as they are ready and served up to the awaiting throngs of customers waiting for fresh bread. The fragrance, texture and color of the loaves are far superior to anything available in grocery stores.

While Kevin does alternate some of his breads, he also has a few “standards” that he brings to every market. One of the biggest sellers is the 20 Seed Bread that he baked while I was at the market with him. He also bakes Country White or Wheat, Multi-Grain, Sprouted Rye, Multi-Grain Raisin Fig-Walnut, Pane Pugliese, Spring Onion andWalnut
Asiago Cheese with Crushed Black Pepper, as well as a few kinds of focaccia. All loaves sell for $7 each, unless you subscribe to the Sandwich Isle Bakers Bread Club, then they are $6.50 each and can be picked up at the Lalamilo location (see below). You can sign up for the bread club on the bakery’s website.

All of the breads baked in the wood-burning oven have a nice crust, good crumb and chewy textures. Kevin goes out of his way to source the best flours and ingredients for his loaves. He even got excited telling me about a new batch of figs he bought that was superb. Every detail is attended to with consummate perfection.There is simply nothing that can compare to bread baked in this style.

Contact information:
Kevin and Kay Cabrera, itinerant bakers,
Sandwich Isle Bread Company
808-989-5655 www.sandwichislebread.com