Hi, After a long absence from my daily fix here at CC, I thought I would put it out there and ask, just how much time do you spend decorating your cookies? Throughout the month of December, I worked hard on cookies, one stage I had to do 3 full days, with 11hours sleep, then by week 2, I had to do 43 hours ( with two 15 minute naps, slipped in) just to get my orders out.

What time did you spend on cookies?

Any tips?? for Planning, execution etc?

Thanks, and I am glad to be back...

Oh yeah, then there is finding time to make new designs ( yeah right, not me)

Depends on the cookie. I did 100 cookies for wedding favors that took me just a couple of hours. But 50 Hello Kitty cookies took me over 5 hours!! Half the number of cookies took 2.5 more time.

Some techniques I can suggest is set up everything assembly line. Don't do one cookie at a time but do all the same process at one time. Do all of the base flooding first. Then do all the design in color A; then do all the design in color B. I have all the RI made and ready to go, covered with damp paper towels. Reduce the steps and you increase your productivity.

Indydebi is right. Do it all assembly line fashion. I did 200 decorated cookies in one weekend this last Christmas. I did bake the cookies over two evenings during the week. Then I covered them all with fondant, brushed them all with disco dust and then after they dried I added all the finishing touches with royal that I made and colored while the cookies were drying. Just be well organized and make sure you are well stocked on ingredients so that you don't have to make a run to the grocery store. I also made several batches of MMF the weekend before and had it ready to go when I needed it. Just be organized and it will all fall in to place. Hope this helps.

thanks for your replies, I didnt get the notification email, I guess its not working at the moment.

I had a production line for sure, I was doing over ( as I lost count and will have to dig thru and total my orders to know for sure) over 1400 cookies for christmas, and it was crazy, I have a bakery trolley and several other shelves/containers and they were all full of drying cookies. It was crazy. While backgrounds were drying I was doing the decoration etc etc.

I did one cookie style at a time and as you mentioned step by step, per tray it really is the only way to do it successfully.

Also I learn't that if I pre measure all of my flour and bag and other dry ingredients, weigh all my butter portions etc that it saved a lot of time at the making dough stage.

The big time taker was the packaging for me. I have labels, one on front, ingredients on back ( which I hand write the best before date) Then I heat seal and then had to tie with ribbon. It took HOURS AND HOURS! I did all the labels on the bags in November so I only had to write dates, that helped.

Next crazy session like that I will do the following. Make dough ahead of time and freeze, and TAKE PHOTOS... can you believe I am lucky if I have 4 photos out of the lot, and I did a couple of hand cut shapes that took forever. It was a learning curve, however I did get them all done in time. thank goodness.

Thanks for listening (reading) and sharing your thoughts.

What I need to master is calculating as you mentioned when the 100 cookies is going to take me 2 hours to ice or 8hours etc.... that I guess will come with time.. thanks again.

COOKIES ARE LABOR INTENSIVE!
GORGEOUS! GORGEOUS! GORGEOUS! WHEN FINISHED.
EVERYBODY CANNOT DO WHAT WE DO.
COOKIES ARE EDIBLE ART-EXPENSIVE.
ASSEMBLY LINE WORKS BEST-ALONG WITH AN AIRBRUSH AND ROLLED FONDANT.

HAPPY BAKING AND DECORATING,
CHEF ANGIE