Retro Bakery's glazed doughnut cupcake, via Flickr
The Las Vegas Sun profiles one of our favorite bakeries to ogle (since I still haven't gotten myself to Vegas, sadly, though flights in November, around my birthday, look pretty cheap), Retro Bakery:
The buttercream, Kari says, is key – not just for the cupcake that mimics an ice cream parlor extravagance, but for nearly all the cupcakes sold at Retro. Real American buttercream is totally different than the canned stuff that Betty Crocker hocks at the supermarket, she explains reverentially. Only one cupcake comes without a hefty serving of the stuff: the glazed doughnut, which is vanilla cake “drenched in doughnut glaze.” The bakery’s slogan echoes the baker: It’s all about the buttercream.
Plus, Kari adds in an exaggerated whisper, “I don’t like cream cheese.”
Her customers seem to agree. Business is up despite the down economy and more and more people who wander into the shop are ordering the custom cakes that Retro crafts, as well. The Haskells even have their eyes on the empty storefront next door for a sister cake shop.
“We’d do it in opposite colors,” Kari says, “like Spy vs. Spy.”
Cupcakes are clearly recession proof.
And if another ingredient is surviving 2009 without a dip in sales, it would have to be bacon, which also has a place on Retro’s counter. The bakery serves up a maple bacon cupcake that consists of vanilla cake with bacon and maple syrup inside topped with maple buttercream and bacon bits.
Inspired by Hash House A Go Go’s bacon waffles, the bacon hits you right at the end, Kari explains.
Next from the notebook are likely Kool-Aid flavored cupcakes and fruit pies translated into cupcake form. If they can stand next to current flavors like milk & cookies, which comes topped with a chocolate chip cookie to dunk in the frosting; or a chocolate fountain that boasts a crown of chocolate ganache-dipped chocolate buttercream, chances are those two will fly off the brightly lit shelves and into the stacked white boxes piled behind the counter.
And just to show how much Kari Haskell loves her bakery, she got the logo tattooed on her arm!
via Flickr
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