KAPA‘A – One bite of homemade focaccia changed Michael Sterioff’s life forever. Before opening up Passion Bakery Cafe on Kaua’i, Sterioff lived in Michigan and worked for an automotive company. In Michigan, Sterioff and his wife attended a dinner hosted
KAPA‘A – One bite of homemade focaccia changed Michael Sterioff’s life forever. Before opening up Passion Bakery Cafe on Kaua’i, Sterioff lived in Michigan and worked for an automotive company. In Michigan, Sterioff and his wife attended a dinner hosted by one of Sterioff’s former co-workers.
“He made a flatbread called focaccia,” Sterioff remarked. “Ah, I’ll never forget that. We’ve been into that, and that’s all she wrote. I ate some of the best bread I’ve had in my entire life that night.”
Sterioff acquired the flatbread recipe from his co-worker and went straight to his kitchen, trying to replicate that tasty focaccia that he so desperately desired.
“I failed miserably,” Sterioff explained. “I failed, but I didn’t give up. It took me about year before I equaled anything close to his focaccia.”
Since then, Sterioff became serious about baking. He began his research by reading books, then he put that knowledge to work by baking at home.
Sterioff snapped his fingers and said: “From then on I started getting books, and baked sourdoughs all at home.”
Baking at home was the initial step to his culinary career. He further pursued his culinary education by volunteering at an artisan bakery once a week in Michigan.
“Every Saturday for 8 months from 2 in the morning until 11, I learned how to make a wide variety of bread and rolls – good flavorful dough,” Sterioff said.
It’s amazing how one bite of deliciousness can inspire a person to achieve his dreams. Sterioff now owns and operates Passion Bakery Cafe, a successful bakery and cafe that has been supplying Kaua’i with onolicious food for over two years.
“We opened Passion Bakery Cafe on a wing and a prayer and it’s taken off,” Sterioff said. “We’ve created a frozen, ready-to-bake product line. We make the goods and freeze it so we don’t have to make it every day. In fact, people can come and take it home and bake it themselves if they wanted to.”
Sterioff introduced Kaua’i Times to several of his tasty creations. First on the menu were two cakes – the Coconut Lilikoi Coffee Cake and the Chocolate Fudge Cake – priced at $3.85 each.
“The first one is a coconut-cream, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free cake with a lilikoi crumb topping,” Sterioff explained. “The second is a chocolate fudge cake – again, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free–made from raw cacao. It’s all organic with the exception of the chocolate chips.”
Next, Sterioff brought to the table four popular cookies that are $2.70 each: The Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookie, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Cookie, Oatmeal Cranberry Mac Nut Cookie and White Chocolate Chip Mac Nut Cookie.
“The two top sellers are the Chocolate Chip Mac Nut and the White Chocolate Chip Mac Nut,” Sterioff said. “The Chocolate Chip Mac Nut was our first creation and by far our most popular cookie.”
After the cookies, Sterioff concluded his onolcious-baked-goods odyssey with four creatively-concocted, mouth-watering muffins found nowhere else on the island. Each muffin sells for $3.50.
“Everybody makes the same thing, so we decided to make something that’s unique,” Sterioff said. “We created these muffins after a friend of mine who makes a stuffed French toast with strawberries and stuffed cream cheese. We decided to do a pull-off from his creation, and we call it our Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast Muffins. We have here Blueberry Stuffed Cream Cheese, Passion Fruit Stuffed Cream Cheese, Coconut Key Lime and Mango Stuffed.”
I didn’t have to sample any of these delicious buggas to know that they were delicious; although, I did have a little taste of a cookie and a muffin after I visited Passion Bakery Cafe. They were delicious beyond words. My mouth was filled with an ecstasy of flavor beyond comprehension.
I knew after those few bites that PBC is one of those special places that I would enter again. Passion Bakery Cafe is definitely a place to visit whenever you’re cruising the Eastside.
If you’re looking for some bread or other onolicious baked goods, you should hop on by and treat yourself to some of the most delicious baked goods found nowhere else on Kaua’i.
Passion Bakery Cafe, located in the Kinipopo Shopping Village at 4-356 Kuhio Highway in Kapa’a, is open Monday to Saturday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and serves only coffee and cookies on Sundays from 5 to 8 p.m. For more information, call 808-821-0060.
