Decorated French macarons made by Tut's Bakery.

Four and a half days out of the week, New Iberia resident Virginia St. Germain works as a nurse in Lafayette. But on nights and weekends, she’s likely to be found in her kitchen whipping up unique and special flavors of French macarons.

St. Germain has been a hobbyist baker for about 10 years, sharing her creations with friends and family, and it is an activity that brings her comfort. She said she has dabbled in baking a variety of sweets but never found something she was exceptionally good at until she started baking macarons last year while on maternity leave for her second child.

Not too long after, someone recommended that she start selling them. And so she did, starting off by selling macarons for Mother’s Day with her new business, Tut’s Bakery.

“And it was a hit. I was like, ‘OK, I guess we’re gonna keep doing this,’” she said. “And now here we are. It’s been almost a year and I’m still just kind of winging it, you know, learning, just trying to do my best.”

St. Germain, a Jeanerette native, said in a video on her bakery’s Facebook page that her business is named after the nickname her family has always called her, Tut.

One of the most popular flavors she offers is Milk and Cookies, which is a vanilla cream that is flavored with chocolate chip cookies from Fais Dough-Dough, a cottage bakery in Lafayette.

While some flavors have a more permanent residence on her bakery’s menu, others are seasonal or are only available on a monthly basis. Some other highly desired cookie flavors she has made this past year include candied jalapeno, pepper jelly, raspberry champagne, Bacardi caramel, lemon and more.

Special flavors are either inspired by a holiday, season, or even a person in her life. For instance, this month’s special flavor is Takis, in honor of her husband’s birthday and inspired by one of his favorite snacks. She made King Cake and Bavarian Creme flavored sandwich cookies for Mardi Gras. She also created “The Virginia” for her birthday, which was a pale sage macaron shell filled with orange blossom and honey buttercream that was topped with salty roasted pistachios, according to her bakery’s Facebook page.

St. Germain said a dream of hers is to one day open up a storefront for her business, but that may be something that happens in a few years. In the meantime, she hopes people enjoy the cookies as much as she does.

“I want everyone to love them as much as I do. You know, it helps us in our day-to-day lives, pay my bills and pay for daycare and things like that but it’s a labor of love,” she said. “I think it makes people happy.”

St. Germain is the mother of a 3-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son and is married to Nicholas St. Germain.