Episode 18: Olaa Bakery - Part 1

In this episode, Aunty Piilani shares how she was taken under the wing of Mr. and Mrs. Kazuyoshi Sonoda, who passed on their recipes, skills, and bakery know-how at the Olaʻa Bakery in Keaʻau, Big Island. From learning to handle commercial mixers to producing hundreds of the bakery’s famous manju, this was a year filled with both hard work and lasting memories. Along the way, her children pitched in—sometimes with comic disasters, like overflowing cupcake batter and run-ins with an unforgiving mixer paddle, and as the chapter closed, a surprising discovery is revealed as a hidden piece of the bakery’s history.