If you build the kernel from a clean tmp, but with shared state, the ccache directory does not get created correctly during the kernel_configme task.
The problem was that the ${CCACHE_DIR} was not being created, it was a timing issue related to sstate and the fact the the kernel_configme happened before do_configure. Normally do_configure would create the dir as it has a [dirs] dependency. This patch was to add a do_kernel_configme[dirs] = "${CCACHE_DIR}" to ensure the directory was created.
http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=e27ff5a9adae0e3ea843690b5f345d126c98fc10