I am a full time worker in a company and partime baker of my own. i have only the typical small oven that fits one 12x15 baking pan.

I will be having my first bulk order for a company for about 1000 pcs of cupcakes.

Please help me how much time i need to be able to meet the deadline. cupcakes should be in BC icing, with flaglets with their company logo back to back and chocolate cupcake. by the way, when i make cupcakes, i can only put about 12 cupcakes in my oven at a time in 15-20 minutes.

and how big my cupcake towers should be? thanks a lot...

It took me from 9am to 6.30pm to bake 230 cupcakes. Thats just to bake. Oh and that was with 18 in the oven at a time. You should start baking now and freeze them, cupcakes love to be frozen, it makes them alot more moist.

You may have to check with a cupcake stand provider as to how many cupcakes their stands hold to get your numbers from there. Good luck, you are going to need it!

Just do the math ......

1000 cupcakes divided by a batch of 12 = 83.3 batches (round to 84).

84 baking batches x 20 minutes per batch = 1680 minutes = 28 hours JUST in baking time. That's straight baking time. That's not allowing for inserting and removing from the oven; that's not accounting for filling and refilling the pan cavities (but you can do that while some are baking).

Either bake head and freeze ..... find another kitchen where you have access to a larger oven ...... or turn down the order.

Last night on Celebrity Apprentice, they had a limited time in a commercial kitchen (7? 8 hours?) with cake pans that held 24 and they could put multiple pans in the oven at the same time. And with all those people on the team to help baking, they barely got them done in time.

I agree with Indydebi....either rent a large kitchen or decline.I baked cupcakes this weekend for an order of 365 and it took me 4 hours to bake 154 at 24 in the oven at once.I still have another 200+ to go and I will do that this week! I can't imagine 1000!

Can I just say WOW! your cakes are amazing. What an accomplishment for this big order. How much are they paying you to do those cupcakes. All I know is that 1000 cupcakes are alot and the baking time wheww.... If you are getting paid well to do this, then I would start baking now if you have enough time. I know that there are alot of commercial kitchen out there that will let you rent their space at night when they are closed or during hours if they are not busy. Maybe use this opiton on your days off, and bake in your kitchen a couple of bathces at night. I would do the order in a heartbeat if they were paying me well. Sometimes big companies can be cheap. I am not sure but I think it is $2 or $ 3 a cupcake right? I dont know If you are getting paid well, over what your hourly full time wage would be for time to bake decorate and deliver then do the job. If not pass, bc it will give you more headache than anything. Good Luck! and Happy Baking.

Also consider .... how much storage/counter space do you have? You say you have a full time job, so I'm assuming you can only dedicate 5-7 hours a day to this project. That's 5-6 days (or more) to get this order done. Do you have the freezer space? Do you have the counter space?

Don't you have 2 racks in your oven? You can put stuff on both if you do. If you feel you have to use cupcake pans, you can do 24 or a full cake mix each bake time. If you are not stuck on cupcake pans use those aluminum foil cups that are also lined with paper. Use both the paper and the foil. They stand on their own and can be baked pretty close together on a good sized cookie sheet with sides. Get yourself a ice cream scoop that is the correct size for your cupcakes. It makes them all uniform. You can do this. I do not make cupcakes for anyone but my kids usually, but they have that big cupcake thread here. I have never read it but you probably should. One swirl of icing works for frosting and husbands or even kids can do that.

I learned on another site that if you flip your cupcake pan upside down and place a large heavy duty sheet of foil on it, you can form it to make additional "Pans". Push the foil over the cups of the cupcake pan, lift up your new "pan", invert it onto a cookie sheet and then use that to support 12 more paper liners.

Good luck, it sounds like you are gonna have your hands full for a long time! Congrats on the order!

Wow--and then to pack and transport--lets see..a 1/2 sheet box only holds about 24--you'll need to do something to keep them from sliding into each other--so that's about 40 boxes sitting around and needing to be transported....

Thanks a lot for all the inputs and ideas.

The event will be on Sunday morning. Friday and Saturday are weekends here in UAE, so meaning i still can do it prior time. thanks for the freezing idea of the cupcakes.

Is $1.00 per cupcake okey or very cheap? only frosting on top and no more filling. the size of my cupcake is 9cm diamter. is it the regular cupcake or mini cupcake?

Please advice. and thanks a lot for all the advices....

For $1000 I would buy some more pans and bake in my oven, as well as my friends and relatives, lmao! Good luck, it wont be so bad to decorate, just start baking asap. You Go Girl!

Buy plain cup cakes from a bakery than you decorate them and resale it, thats the only way you can cope with such a big order with out having a proper kitchen

thank you so much paolocaracas for the idea. brilliant!

Please try to take pictures of this operation, sounds daunting... I'm wishing you tons of luck!! A dollar sounds cheap to me, depending on the decorating, swirl or no, etc. Good luck again!

thanks for the idea of buying from other supplier. what i did, was i dessiminate the cupcakes to be baked by my friends who i know, make cakes. i entrusted them 400 each. im gonna buy theirs in cheaper price without icing ang packing. i will be the one to make swirl frosting and the company logo flags on top and assemble the towers with the transportation.

i feel so relieved now that i was helped by you guys of your brilliant ideas. they are really of great help. after Sunday, Im gonna post here the pictures of how it turn out...thanks a million CCers.

Good luck!!! I can't wait to see the pics!!

everything went well, i wasnt able to take picture of the cupcakes and the towers because as soon as the Director welcomed the students, the towers and cupcakes were like having whirlwind; for less than a minute all cupcakes were gone...lol

but the Finance Officer was able to take pictures (I am still in fact waiting for it).

I anticipated that I could have done those 1200 pcs in just two days as I was able to bake last Saturday for more than 600 pcs. because this time, i bought my friend's cupcake (600 pcs), but anyhow, better do it next time....

thanks a lot for the advices and ideas.

Transporting: i put them in the box. inserted toothpick each of the cupcakes so that they wont move whenever transported. Indeed it wasnt destroyed neither moved not even one eventhough we piled the 15 boxes from one over another in a 12 seater van and transported them for about 30minutes away from my area. thanks to somebody here in CC who contributed this toothpick idea.

Towers: made of thick styrofoam, wrap them, glued them together and put ribbons on the edge/sides of the towers. 3 tiers each tower and 3 towers for that event. 200pcs each tower as they have 2 party sessions. 600 pcs in morning was served and the other in the afternoon.

The most important is the feedback. feedback was positive and so overwhelming and hope to do business with that government school again as they promised.

Picture will follow as soon as I receive the same from the Finance department.

fellow CCers and elders (the Juniors and the moderators) i owe you a lot. you are a very big help and hope you wont get tired of sharing your ideas and encouraging us newbies hopeful baking....

Congratulations, I was wondering how you made out....I am looking forward to the pictures.

please find enclosed the picture sent to me. it was not set-up properly in the tower as everybody was in hurry.

TOWER: was very simple as they preferred simple yet clean with accent of the school colors (Blue and Maroon).

FLAG PICK: toothpick was edible. and the flags are back to back, as they open and officially announced the school's website. That's their purpose of having cupcakes to introduce their website on the flags.

the proper/actual set-up of the 3 towers were not taken as thee students and other guests picked them in less than a minute.

I bet you were very relieved and happy once it was all done... you did a nice job, love them