KAILUA-KONA — Bryson Perkins spent his childhood gazing up at starry Hawaiian skies and dreaming about how he might one day reach the rest of the world.
More than a little ironically, he found his ticket on the floor of a New Hampshire bookstore.
The master sugar artist and one of the foremost cake decorators in the world, Perkins, now 36, left home for a small town outside of Boston at the age of 19 with no inkling of what he would become.
As he flew across the Pacific curious as to what the mainland might hold in store for him, he opened up a cookbook a waitress from his former place of employment had given him before his departure. In the back of the book, she inscribed a bit of advice for Perkins.
To paraphrase, she suggested when homesick, he turn to the kitchen.
In the spirit of her advice, he went to a Borders Bookstore to pick up a second collection of recipes soon after he arrived. But his calling wasn’t among the shelves.
“On the floor of the aisle was a cake decorating book,” Perkins recalled. “I picked it up, forgot what I’d come into the store for in the first place, and never put it down.”
Full circle
After 17 years away from home, Perkins is planning a return to Hawaii Island this summer once his international tour is complete. This time, he’s coming home for good.
Perkins was back in Kailua-Kona earlier this month for a visit. During his trip, he held a day of informal, introductory decorating seminars, one for adults and one for keiki, at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel.
The experience and the discussions held there, he explained, added to his sense of a yawning market gap not only on Hawaii Island but throughout the state.
After perfecting his craft across the globe — from competitions in Italy to trips to Monaco where he researched inspirations for elaborate decorative undertakings — Perkins wants to open up a specialty bakery in West Hawaii.
“People get their cakes from the grocery store, and they pay the cost I charge at my own bakery,” he said.
Hoteliers are excited about what he has to offer, but the world-renowned sugar artist doesn’t plan on pricing out the community at large, even with retail figures reflecting an upcharge due to importing costs.
When he’s not taking wedding cake orders or making edible art for other special occasions, Perkins plans to travel Hawaii teaching courses like those he staged in Kona a couple weeks back.
“For me, the only thing to do is pass (the gift) along because it was given to me,” he said. “I feel it’s my duty.”
Industry professionals like Kerry Vincent, co-founder of the Oklahoma Sugar Art Show and a former judge on Food Network Challenge, was named among Perkins’ influences and mentors.
But the first teacher and supporter he ever had still lives right here in West Hawaii — his grandmother, Peggy Carmack. An avid seamstress and crafter, she offered an outlet for Perkins’ creative tendencies.
“Every chance I could get I’d go over to her house … and work on crafts with her,” he said. “So she instilled that creativity within me from a very young age.”
Carmack remembers that when only a small boy, her grandson would shadow her in the kitchen tugging at her side asking, “How do you this, grandma? How do you do this?”
Still, she admitted she never anticipated the unique and far-reaching career arch Perkins has paved for himself.
“I never thought he’d be a baker, honestly,” said Carmack, adding she was as surprised as she was overjoyed to learn of the path Perkins had chosen. “Bryson could do it all and when he took up baking, I knew he’d make a go of it.”
It wasn’t only the family Perkins had that inspired his creativity, which includes four sisters and a host of aunties who will be on hand when he returns to start his bakery. It was also all the material things he lacked that pushed him to explore and discover.
“Growing up poor with (a bunch of) siblings in Hawaii, I had to be resourceful,” he said. “That’s what drove me to be inventive and creative. That all culminated when I started my cake decorating career.”
Ascending talent
Perkins began decorating on his own 14 years ago. He went pro a dozen years back. And he started entering competitions in 2012, both to bring notoriety to the business he worked for as well as to start making a name for himself in the industry.
He submitted a decoration to a show in the Northeast that year, entering into the professional division, which is one rung below the top level of the masters division. The next morning, however, he arrived to find the judges had bumped him up to the masters division overnight. His immediate reaction didn’t include flattery.
“I was a little mad,” Perkins admitted. “I didn’t understand it as a young artist, thinking I would have won outright in the professional division. But looking back on it, it was a huge growth step and an honor.”
And also, he won the masters division in the wedding category regardless.
For years now, Perkins has been competing at the top of the industry with substantial success. He won the 2017 Grand National Wedding Cake Competition in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after finishing in fifth place the year before. In 2018, he took home second place in that contest, explaining that because of the size of the prize repeat winners aren’t allowed.
He claimed second place in the 2017 Cake Designers World Championship held in Milan, Italy, for a cake featuring a rendering of Madame Pele.
Perkins has also earned the title of Grand Champion from the International Cake Exploration Society in 2015 and has been named a Top Ten Cake Artist of the Year, either nationally or internationally, three times by three different magazines and academies.
He has for several years offered demonstrations all over the world as a brand ambassador for multiple culinary corporations, offering demos to captivated audiences.
Perkins spends hundreds of hours on artistic marvels inspired by architecture, colors, animals and fashion. He drew more than 50 renderings on paper and spent over 1,000 hours on a modern classic-themed cake inspired by Grace Kelly for last year’s Grand National Wedding Cake Competition.
And coming in March or April, the Food Network will air a one-hour documentary special about his life.
“It’s easier to turn an artist into a baker than vice-versa,” Perkins said.
Which isn’t to say living a dream he never knew he had has been easy, but it has been special.