Cross-Country Cupcake Crawl: Day 4

Las Vegas, NV
Miles Traveled:  444
States Entered: 3
Cupcakes Consumed: 4

We set out this morning at precisely 8am, arriving in Las Vegas at exactly noon.  Our first stop was The Cupcakery, which was located in the world's hardest-to-enter strip mall.

The Cupcakery
Las Vegas, NV
The Cupcakery's sign proclaimed it to have "The Best Little Cupcakes in Las Vegas" and we have to agree.  The modern walk-up bakery is clean, cute, and commercial, exactly what you would expect of a bakery located in a bright and shiny new strip mall.  Covered cake platters housing beautifully decorated cupcakes adorn The Cupcakery's long counter, and a refrigerated display case houses additional cupcakes as well.  The side walls contain sets of shelves that hold cupcake decorating kits and other cupcake accessories for sale.  My favorite cupcakes were a set in the display case, each of which was decorated with a beautiful edible purple flower and edible glitter.  Gorgeous!

We had a very difficult time selecting two cupcakes (stupid rules!) and eventually chose our Vanilla Chocolate baseline and the Bugsy (carrot cake with cream cheese frosting).  Although a couple of standing tables were nestled into a corner, we opted to take our cupcakes outside to the tables on the sidewalk.  In retrospect this turned out to be a bad plan as the adjacent parking lot was hot, noisy, and smelled like exhaust.  Baron and I had differing opinions on the cupcakes -- I thought they were absolutely scrumptious, and beautifully decorated to boot.  He liked the cake but wasn't a big fan of the texture of the frosting.  You can read our detailed reviews of the cupcakes here.


All in all this was a great little walk-up cupcake shop, though it would've been nice if there was roomier seating room indoors.  After a brief stop at In-N-Out for lunch (I love their grilled cheese "burgers"), we made our way over to Cupcake Lane Bakery.

Cupcake Lane Bakery
Las Vegas, NV
Located in yet another brand-spanking-new strip mall on the other side of the city, Cupcake Lane Bakery shared a very similar look with The Cupcakery.  (In fact, we think that both of them, along with the Cupcake Shoppe in Edmonton, all might be using the same font.)  The inside of Cupcake Lane Bakery had a strong, sugary sweet smell that reminds me of grocery store bakeries, and my heart sank as I noticed that the cupcakes in the refrigerated display case had a "grocery store" look to them as well.  (I think it has something to do with brightly colored frosting and airbrushed decorations.)  The bakery seemed to be run by two very friendly guys who cheerfully gave us permission to take some pictures.  Baron pulled out his camera and began taking pictures of the stripper-man cupcake-cake while I lounged on the kid-sized armchairs.


They didn't have any plain Vanilla Chocolate cupcakes so we chose the Main Street instead -- vanilla cake with chocolate chips baked inside topped with chocolate buttercream and rolled in mini chocolate chips.  We also got the Michigan Avenue, lemon infused cake topped with lemon cream cheese frosting.  There wasn't any seating room inside the bakery so we got our cupcakes to go and decided to eat them a bit later.  We set off going south and 45 minutes later found ourselves crossing the Hoover Dam.  We thought it would be funny to take pictures of cupcakes on top of the dam, but it was 112°F outside and we didn't think the cupcakes would last 30 seconds.  As soon as we stepped out of the car I realized that I might not make it 30 seconds.  It was so hot that the top of my sandal-clad feet were burning!


We pulled over about half an hour after passing the dam to eat the cupcakes.  Both Baron and I found the cakes to be extremely dry and the lemon frosting had a sickening artificial flavor.  The bakery was so cute and the guys were so friendly that we really wanted to like these cupcakes!  Unfortunately, they just weren't very good.  You can read the detailed reviews of them here.

After finishing our cupcakes we resumed our southward trek.  Unfortunately, we got a little bit derailed.


Both Baron and I were completely fine (well, until some helpful passers by pulled me out of the window and onto a cactus), and surprisingly none of our stuff was damaged either.  It's going to be a bit difficult to continue a cross-country cupcake crawl without a car, so the crawl is on (hopefully temporary) hiatus.  Stay tuned for an update!