hi-
My sister-in-law asked me to make 60 starfish cookies for a bridal shower. She showed me a picture, it's a 4" cookie, decorated with RI. I am planning on using NFSC with RI but no matter how many times I read the article on how to bake and decorate cookies (thanks Antonia for creating this I'm just a slow learner! ) I am still confused on how long the process will take.

She wants to pick up the cookies on Friday 6/19 for a shower on Saturday 6/20. She wants just the cookies as she plans on doing the bags, bows etc.

When should I bake and then decorate? I've attached a picture of what she wants? How much drying time do I have to allow when piping the different colors, decorations etc?

thanks in advance for any help.
-alexis

RI decorated cookies need about 24 hours to dry completely before bagging them. NFSC with RI can last 2 weeks before getting stale, however I make them a few days before I need them. RI does not have to dry completely when adding different colors and designs on top but you will have to wait some hours before piping over the flooded cookie or you run the risk of disturbing the bottom layer of RI. I usually pipe the outline, let dry for an hour or 2, flood, dry few more hours, the add detail and completely dry overnight before bagging. HTH

If it was me, I would bake my cookies Thursday night and place them in zip lock bags after they are completely cooled. I would then flood my cookies Friday morning and then decorate the additional piping on top 2-3 hours later. I would let them sit the remainder of the day and night out to dry. You can leave them on racks and cover loosely, but do not allow anything to touch them. Then carefully bag them Saturday am.

I would use the Toba's glace for the flooding and the piping with RI... It would taste better (at my opinion hehehe)
Bake on thursday, flood on thursday night and do the piping on friday...

If she's picking them up on Friday, I would bake the weekend before and place them in the freezer. Take them out to thaw on Wednesday morning. Decorate on Wednesday and Thursday. I work during the day, so I do all my decorating at night or on the weekend. For 60 cookies, I would want two nights to spend decorating them. They'd have all day Friday to dry.

Making the actual cookie ahead of time and freezing is the best idea. Then all the mess and clean up from that is done. Make your icing (I would use glace for better taste RI dries out the cookie - my opinion)on Monday, tint it in the colors you'll need. You'll have the whole week to decorate and dry. Of course I learned all I know about cookies from GeminiRJ and TracyLH. They are your cookie experts.

I recommend you to start as soon as you can and you can keep them freeze until the day that you need it because it's going to take you a lot of time to make 60 cookies if it's the first time that you are making cookies you can decorate them and freeze them without any problem just make sure to thaw them before you bag them HTH

When I bake and decorate sugar cookies, I normally use colorflow icing. It dries pretty fast. I don't have to wait very long before I flood the cookie. But, I do wait a few hours before piping on top. You can buy color flow mix at any craft store. It's super easy. I always add a little lemon emulsion or vanilla to the icing.