Coming from a long line of grocers and bakers, Monica Shaughnessy first took to baking as a teen trying to imitate her great grandmother’s famous tea cookies.
Now, as the owner of recently opened Tredici Bakery and Cafe, Shaughnessy doesn’t imitate, she creates.
Shaughnessy, whose family owns Calandro’s Supermarket, graduated from working in the bakery of the store as a teen to living out her fantasy of opening her own bakery.
“I’ve kind of always known this is what I wanted to do,” Shaughnessy said. “I went to culinary school where I found my best friend, and she works for me now. I always talked to her about doing something, but then I just went ahead and did it myself.”
Shaughnessy’s family plays a huge role in Tredici, including inspiring the name. Both Shaughnessy and her best friend and co-worker Erin Laley come from big Italian families. Tredici means 13 in Italian, which is a baker’s dozen.
“My family comes here all the time,” Shaughnessy said. “So I want it to be a place where my family can hang out and get some good treats. It’s about business, but it’s also about bringing everybody together at the same time.”
There are other local shops in Baton Rouge that may make some of the same products as Shaughnessy, but she said what sets Tredici apart is that she’s always trying out new recipes and not only making old school pastries.
One of those new treats is the naked cake. Seeing a naked cake as a wedding cake is quite jarring at first, Shaughnessy said. It’s beautiful, but like nothing ever seen as a wedding cake before. A naked cake has no icing or fondant and is mostly part bare, save for some powdered sugar or any other topping the customer may want.
Shaughnessy said a naked cake is made like any other cake, except she doesn’t put the icing on the outside. She can put fillings in it, buttercream, ganache and fruit on top to decorate.
“My friend who got married two years ago was looking on Pinterest and was like, ‘Hey, can you do a cake that looks just like this?” Shaughnessy said. “She sent me the picture, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is that?’ I did it for her wedding, and it was a huge hit.”
Despite never having seen a naked cake before her friend sent her the picture, Shaughnessy quickly caught on and now makes them for weddings all the time.
For those who aren’t fans of plenty of icing on their cakes, she said the naked cakes are perfect. While great for customers, naked cakes are not easy for Shaughnessy and Laley to make.
“With a regular cake covered in frosting or fondant, you can hide a lot of your mistakes,” Laley said. “With a naked cake, your edges still need to be beautiful, you can’t hide those flaws. It’s kind of a challenge.”
Whether it’s the challenge of making naked cakes or striking out on their own, Shaughnessy and Laley both depend on their families for support.
When it comes to thoughts of expansion, the two find it hard to stray away from their Louisiana roots and what they’ve built in Baton Rouge.
“I don’t think we would have the same enthusiasm in a different market,” Laley said. “This is our home, these are our families, these are our friends. I feel like they really want to see us succeed.”

Gallery • 12 Photos

Catherine Seddon

Cupcakes at the newly opened Tredici Bakery on Capital Heights Ave. in Baton Rouge.