One of the city’s most beloved cake destinations is about to get the celebrity-chef treatment with its own series, Vegas Cakes. After 58 years in the business, Freed’s Bakery will be the star of its own TV show on the Food Network, which will launch on Sunday, November 5 with two back-to-back episodes, starting at 10 p.m. Vegas Cakes will feature the family bakery as its staff creates high-end desserts for a cast of notable characters, including Wayne Newton, Blue Man Group and more.
Bringing the business to the television screen wasn’t exactly easy, says manager and owner Max Fried, but it was definitely fun. "We’re used to creating custom cakes, but this is something above and beyond that," Fried says. "It’s trying to figure out engineering or how we’re going to make [a cake] move, and doing three of them in a week." That’s in addition to everything else going on in the bakery, he says. “It’s not like we closed down during filming; we had to run a business."
The first episode introduces the Freed’s team as they drop off a three-foot-long custom car cake and a magical unicorn cake to clients. In the second episode, the bakery designs an epic cake for Cirque Du Soleil’s KÀ as the production celebrates its 6,000th performance, and also bakes an alien-themed cake for the Vegas 51s baseball team.
Filming for the pilot began in April, and the rest of the season was shot in the Fall. The bakery just wrapped recording three weeks ago, Fried says.
“The coolest thing about all of this is being able to represent a side of Vegas that I don’t think gets a lot of exposure,” he continues. “People think of Vegas sometimes as this adult playground and this carnival, and there’s a whole other side of Vegas where it’s a community. There are obviously families that live here, so we tried to focus on a lot of cool local celebrations. It’s cool to be a longstanding vegas business and be able to represent the community we love.”
If watching Vegas Cakes gives your sweet tooth a tug, Freed’s best-selling desserts are available at its shop on Eastern Ave. Variations include the brown derby chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries, the four seasons white cake with Bavarian cream and assorted fruits and the Parisian chocolate cake with Belgian chocolate whipped cream.
Freed's Bakery 9815 S Eastern Ave, 702-456-7762.
