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Nathle Thompson wakes and pads quietly out to the kitchen in the stillness of the night. It's time to punch down the bread dough, shape it into loaves and set it aside to rise again. After that she'll drift back to sleep for a couple of hours before waking to put the puffed-up loaves into the oven to bake, filling the neighborhood with the sweet fragrance of Bimini bread.

Soon her daughter, Carmen Dames, will arrive to take the bread to the Straw Market. Carmen likes to arrive early in order to arrange the still-warm loaves on the counter of her booth before tourists start lining up to buy them.

Bimini bread looks like ordinary white sandwich bread, but its sweet flavor sets it apart, making it an island favorite. Once the bread was exclusively made at home and those who didn't bake were out of luck, unless they had a friend who did. Today Bimini bread is sold at local markets and served at the island's top restaurants, establishing the bread as yet another tourist attraction on this pristine island.

Now 71, Thompson continues to bake four batches of bread - 24 loaves to a batch, 96 loaves in all - every day. The only concession she makes to her years is the use of a mixer for the heavy kneading. However she says firmly, "I loaf it off by hand." Thompson bakes at night when it's cool, the pleasant aroma wafting from her house no doubt inspiring neighbors' pleasant dreams.

All Bimini breads are sweet white breads made with yeast, but each has its own flavor and texture. Recipes are closely guarded secrets. Thompson, however, is willing to share the ingredients: flour, yeast, sugar, "so it'll be nice and sweet," shortening and salt. "If you don't use salt, it burns quick," she says. No further details are forthcoming.

Thompson also makes banana bread and coconut bread, rolls and candies, which her daughter sells at the Straw Market. But the Bimini bread, according to Carmen, is the main attraction. Carmen runs the business end, but never learned to bake. Her mother suspects the reason: "young people don't want flour on their hands."

Unlike Dames, 31-year-old Corey Pritchard plunges his hands into soft white flour every day, with the results considered by some to be the best bread in Bimini. Pritchard's bread, which slices beautifully, has the firm, dense consistency of homemade bread and, of course, that telltale sweetness. It's perfect for toasting and spreading with soft butter and local guava jelly, and makes sublime French toast, soaking up the egg mixture, and later the maple syrup, without falling apart or getting mushy.

Pritchard's grandparents began making bread at home for their own family and soon began selling it at their small grocery store about 30 years ago. Word of mouth has made it one of Bimini's most popular breads. Today, restaurants and resorts including the big Game Club, the Red Lion Inn and Lala's Café serve Pritchard's bread. Their guests demand it, they say. Pritchard helped out at his grandparents' store as a teenager. "My grandfather and I were a team," he recalls. The bread baking gene skipped a generation, and a few years ago, Pritchard took over the store. His grandfather has died, but his grandmother Pritchard still supplies the shop with her popular coconut rolls.

The elder Pritchards made great bread, but it wasn't always consistent, reports the grandson. "They just scooped some flour, scooped some sugar. They never measured, so sometimes it was sweeter than other times." Pritchard began to measure ingredients and now uses a written recipe - an item that is much in demand, but not available, at any price. He is willing to reveal that one of the secrets to his success is kneading and shaping every loaf by hand.

Jocelyn Ellis, a cook at Gulfstream Restaurant at the Big Game Club, reinforces Pritchard's claim: "It's the best bread on the island because he kneads it with his hands, and he kneads it longer than other bakers," she said. Guests often order bread to take home when they leave Bimini. Stephane Sawyer, of Lala's Café, orders 15 loaves a day, often adding a few extra for herself, preferring the loaves fresh from the oven. "It's good cold," she says, "but it's great hot. It doesn't last five minutes in my house."

Abigail Davis, a friend of Pritchard's, drops in at the store every so often to "pinch some of the dough, take it home and fry it." She sprinkles it with sugar and cinnamon, for a treat so popular in her family that it earned her youngest son, two-year-old Kyas, the nickname "dough boy."

The popularity of his bread has inspired Pritchard to think about expanding the store, adding some help, maybe opening a separate bakery. The idea is a good one, but begs the question: how many loaves can one man knead in a day?

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© Jeri Quinzio. This article originally appeared in Island Scene magazine.

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