In 1959, Milton and Esther Fried decided to open a bakery in the young city of Las Vegas. However, when the Frieds (pronounced Freeds) were deciding what to name their new shop, they stumbled over the spelling of their own last name. Written on a sign above the window, “Fried’s” would look like it was advertising a bakery full of deep-fried delicacies. They changed the spelling for the business, replacing the troublesome “i” with an “e,” and never looked back. Today, Freed’s Bakery of Las Vegas is 50 years old and still churning out the cookies, cakes and pastries it’s become known for over the last half-century.

“They came over from New Jersey, saw a need for delicious desserts and that was it,” said Freed’s General Manager Max Fried of his grandparents, Milton and Esther. “They opened up in the Panorama Market, which was originally owned by one of the Las Vegas commissioners," a man named Harry Leny according to Fried's grandmother.

There are still two Frieds at the helm of the business – owner Joni Fried, Milton and Esther’s daughter, and her nephew, Max. The bakery employs about 40 people total and produces around 22,000 cakes a year, many of them custom orders that look every bit as impressive as the sugary sculptures showcased on series like Ace of Cakes.

“I think what people are realizing now is that there are no limits about what they can do, so people are changing everything and anything about a cake,” said Max Fried. “It used to be, even like five or six years ago, people just came in and they bought that cake. It’s a Peter Pan cake; there’s only one way it comes. Now, there’s no rules or regulations of what people can ask for, so people are taking advantage of that and making just crazy cakes.”

On the Freed’s Web site custom cakes made for celebrities like Terry Fator, Wayne Brady and Dave Navarro make it clear that they’ve taken that philosophy to heart. Navarro’s guitar-shaped cake looks so real, you can imagine that tattooed rocker strumming it. Fator’s cake is modeled after the Nintendo Wii and the bowling game the ventriloquist likes to play to loosen up before show time. A tiered cake for Ludacris depicts casino chips and a roulette wheel so detailed each individual number is appropriately labeled.

On display in the refrigerator behind the 25-year-old Fried, a pumpkin-shaped cake with a Zorro-like mask smiled out at the busy bakery. “It’s called Phantom of the Cake,” Fried explained.

While those cake creations are a relatively recent trend, a lot of what’s served at Freed’s is as old as the bakery itself.

“We haven’t changed our recipes. We’ve brought in new ones, but we haven’t really changed. We’re still doing everything from scratch. A lot of the recipes you see are millions of years old,” Fried said, laughing at his own exaggeration.

Or 50 years old, at least. The bread pudding, for example, is an original dish still made the same way. “It was my grandma’s favorite item. That’s probably the oldest recipe we have.”

Other traditions have also endured at the two Freed’s Bakery of Las Vegas locations that are both on Eastern Avenue, one at Richmar Avenue, the other at Tropicana Avenue. Every December, the extended Fried family gathers in Las Vegas for a couple weeks of cookie baking and catching up.

“We work like dogs for the month of December,” laughed Max Fried. “We set up lots of tables, get tons of cookies out and then all we do is make cookie trays and eat tons of chocolate. … My mom comes down, my dad, my brother, my sister, cousins, they all come in from out of town. It’s kind of like the unofficial family reunion every year, but it’s a working family reunion. … We provide them with a place to stay, and that’s how we pay them. And in cookies.”

While the approaching annual get together will go down once again this winter, the past year has brought new challenges for the middle-aged bakery.

“I know with this recession, this is something that the bakery has never experienced before,” said Fried, adding that the shop has responded by getting out of breakfast items like Danish that people can pick up at Starbucks. “We’ve gotten out of that and gotten more into our strengths – good desserts. We’ve gone back to the basics, I guess, to get through this recession. We’ve just kind of had to tighten our belts like everyone else.”

Of course, belt-tightening isn’t exactly what a bakery like Freed’s is good for. The kitchen is stocked with fresh butter and heavy whipping cream, and the display cases look like a dietician’s worst nightmare.

“Nothing here is good for you,” he chuckled. “You know what you’re getting when you come here. You’re getting dessert, and it’s the way dessert is supposed to taste.”