I dont normally do cookies, but I took an order for 300 cookie favors for a wedding. (along with the wedding cake) They are sugar cookies with royal icing on them...I was going to dedicate an afternoon to just icing them (I am not very fast at it) I was wondering how far in advance I can make the cookies without them getting stale? (they will be placed in plastic cello bags with ties) I use the no fail sugar cookie recipe found here (I LOVE that recipe..I have used it for christmas cookies several seasons now and its the best!) If I made them like on a Monday would they still be fresh on Saturday?

Thanks!

Your timeline is good, they will still be fresh, after icing I usually let mine set to dry for 24 hrs out in the air and then bag. Once bagged I have let them sit for up to a week and everyone is still happy with them.

However for that many cookies I suggest starting a month or two in advance. This is what I do.

- Mix up the dough
- Roll it out
- Cut out the cookies you need
- Pull excess away from cut outs
- Put pan in freezer w/cut outs still on it for about 15 mins
- Repeat above 4 steps
- Take frozen cut outs off of pan and stack them in a container w/wax paper between the layers - put back in freezer
- continually repeat the above 2 steps until you have all of your cookies

I then bake while frozen and just add an extra minute onto the time, let them cool and then ice.

This breaks up a lot of the work and makes it a little more time maneagable.

Sorry to hijack, but I have a question about freezing.

Leily, when I freeze/chill my dough even for like 20 minutes (sometimes I get busy and it's in there longer than just to chill), if I put waxed paper (or even parchment) between my layers, I can't get the cookies apart/off the paper. Have you had this problem, and how do you avoid it if you did?

I just did abot 200 cookies as a favor to a friend for her daughter's bat mitzvah. I used the NFSC recipe too. The party was on a Saturday. I baked almost all of the cookies the Monday (and one full batch on Tuesday morning) prior and started icing them on Tuesday, finishing the icing on Wednesday (there were a lot of cookies and they each had several colors). Then I let them dry for about 36 hours before I bagged them on Friday.

They were fine (and I am notoriously compulsive about food safety kinds of things because I have a family with extreme intestinal issues). I don't keep my cookies "out" on the table while drying, though, I put them in closed contianers of some sort so they don't get stale or get dust on them or anything.

As far as freezing, I do have a quesiton...
I tried some samples a few weeks earlier to see if I could make and freeze them a week or two before. They tasted fine (no freezer burn), but I thought they were a bit more crisp than when they are fresh. Have any of you had that same experience? Do you know if there is any way to keep the consistency softer if they are made in advance and then frozen?

Loriemoms -
This is just what I do, but I always want to give the freshest product possible to the customer. If I'm not going to frost them right away I always put any size order in the freezer. I never let unfrosted cookies sit out even overnight. And if you do your own taste tests you'll see that there is a definite difference in quality between a cookie that's been sitting in a bag for a day or two versus sitting in a bag for a week. Yes, they're still edible, but not nearly as tasty, IMO, as a fresher one. So the closer you can frost and bag them to the actual date is always best.

Freezing! Never thought of that! That sounds like a great idea to me...that way I just cut all the cookies one day and throw them in the freezer and get it all done. I like that!

I always leave cookies out on racks, never thought about that could make them stale faster! So I love this idea even more so, so I can just bake them, let them cool and get them ready ... you guys are the greatest!!

don't know if you're interested but I completely baked, iced, and decorated NFSC with antonia's royal and painted with americolor gels and then layered them between parchment wrapped em' really good and froze them for 2 weeks, when I took them out to thaw I just left them on top of the fridge for a day and unwrapped them the next day and here they are.........this is AFTER freezing...and they look exactlly the same as before!

Tina

KHalstead - do you freeze cookies a lot after frosting them? Do you ever have troubles with dark colors bleeding when you do that? I've only done it a time or two for my own family and kind of remember the color bleeding being a slight issue one time.

On another note, I think frosted sugar cookies freeze wonderfully. Even though I don't do it for customers, all my Easter customers froze theirs for a week or so after picking them up. They all knew they had to do this if they wanted Easter cookies because I had to take early orders since I was going to be gone the week before Easter. The people I've heard back from said it worked perfectly...but my easter cookies didn't have any darker colors either.

On yet ANOTHER note (sorry this is long), I did a wedding order for 300 white snowflakes over Christmas. The wedding was the weekend after Christmas and since we were having company I did them all two weeks in advance, frosted and bagged and froze them for her until she needed them. She simply raved about them even after being frozen for 2 weeks...but I knew I could do this with all white frosting...no bleeding issues. Can you imagine doing a huge order, and pulling them out of the freezer later to find that the colors have bled??!!!! That's my only fear!!

Quick question for KHalstead: Have you ever painted on Toba's Glace?

(Stunning cookies, BTW! )

I had the same question about freezing a frosted cookie. I froze a white cookie with rec accents for about 2 weeks. When I defrosted it, I just left it sitting in its packaging on the counter for a day, when i unwrapped it, it tasted exactly as i put it in the freezer, and there was no color bleeding at all.

Holy Smokes KHalstead those are some gorgeous cookies!!!!!!!!!!

khalstead, Those cookies are really georgous. could you please tell me how you did them?

I would love to know the technique also - Thanks a lot