Lagniappe Bakehouse in New Orleans, LA

Kaitlin Guerin, Owner

Origins

I decided to switch careers in 2017. I had trained in modern contemporary dance and decided to go to culinary school to pursue a different form of creative expression. I felt pastry was another avenue to be task and science oriented – goal oriented in a different way.

In pandemic time, I moved back to New Orleans from California in January 2020 and opened a pop-up called Lagniappe Baking in May. I was selling pastry boxes highlighting local seasonal bounty. No two boxes were ever the same. I did collaborations with chefs and restaurants. I knew I would hit a ceiling in that pop-up stage. But I wanted to wait and see the trajectory of other chefs who were opening businesses during the pandemic because that’s very scary.

So in 2023, my partner [Lino Asana] and I started looking for spaces. Once we found it, we needed six months for renovations. You have to be a little crazy to be in this industry. It’s very hands-on. I find a lot of similarities with movement and baking. The discipline of working in the kitchen and working in the dance industry is comparable.

Company Mission

Part of it is in the name, itself. Lagniappe means a little something extra. That’s a Cajun expression we use here in Louisiana. Dessert is something you get at the end of the meal. We’re storytelling through the ingredients, connecting a lot of these ingredients between Southern foodways and West African roots. If we’re looking at ingredients, these are pink colors. The art is the palate. How you choose to combine them with subtlety and range certifies our end of the business. We try to highlight local farmers and seasonal ingredients.

Signature Products

The three or four grains of paradise. It’s our take on a cardamom bun or a cinnamon roll. It’s a cinnamon-filled cardamom bun with orange zest and grains of paradise, a West African spice that has a sweet licorice finish. The grains of paradise version we are choosing is from Cameroon. It has a little sweeter aftertaste.

Another signature item would be the pain au chocolat that uses batons from Piety and Desire, a local chocolatier who makes the batons for us. That is a Tanzanian chocolate. It’s super fruity and light, a 70 percent dark chocolate.

Vaucresson is a fourth-generation Creole sausage maker out of the seventh ward of New Orleans. They provide two different sausages. One is a custom breakfast sausage, a milder pork-based sausage. The other is their signature hot sausage. We’re doing a lattice-style croissant with them and we’re calling it the Vaucroissant.

Other seasonal items include our corn muffin that we finish with a honey butter. We’re using corn husks as the cupcake liner so it gives it a much more rustic look and feel.

We also try to use pecans, sweet potatoes. Right now, we’re running a gluten-free sweet potato loaf cake.

Production Tip

Do your homework and learn about the history of what you’re doing. Learn about the food history and the chefs who came before you. You can build your career by being very present, but understanding how we got here allows you to incorporate those influences from there. Farm-to-table is popular now, but people have been doing that for generations.

Also ask a lot of questions. Whether you’re working from a turnkey or doing a renovation in my case, it’s important to understand the space you’re in. I didn’t know anything about the build-out process. I built a kitchen within the parameters of a very tiny space. I wouldn’t be able to understand it without asking a lot of annoying and repetitive questions. Having a mentor is another big piece of advice. You can never be too old to ask for help. I have chef friends who might have an electrical problem and they say, I don’t know. I just call a guy to come fix it. Well, I want to know why this breaks or why that keeps dripping. What’s under the floorboards that can help me save time and money.

Equipment ‘Must-Haves’

I recently got one of those Exoglass spoons. They’ve very heat-resistant. I use them for making jams. I was cursed for a while when the bakehouse was scorching all my jams. The spoon doesn’t pick up smells. It’s very durable. I’m usually one to reach for a rubber spatula, but I’m loving this.

Secrets of Success

We stay hyper-local. That keeps us in contact with the community, but it also gives us control of our ingredients. We’re also involved in every aspect of the business, from the baking to maintaining the physical space. The other thing is that we make sure we tell our story through our food. It isn’t just about the products we sell.

Future Plans

When we first opened, we were hoping to maintain the consistency of the place that is solid, so people can always come back to it and know it will be the same. I think working with yeast in a hot, humid city like New Orleans is a challenge on its own.

We are trying to get a liquor license so we can extend our hours. We are only open from 8 to 2. We’d like to extend that to be able to offer small plates, savory and sweet, with wine pairings, stretching into more natural wines and that whole movement. It would be like a French bistro that transitions out of breakfast. Down the line, we want to extend the bakehouse and we are thinking of opening a satellite location that offers coffees and pastries, something in the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans, a historically-black neighborhood that is craving new businesses. Just as our neighborhood in Central City was when we arrived.

For more info, visit www.lagniappebaking.com

(This article appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)