hi fellow decorators! I'm just curious to see how long does it take you, on average, to decorate a cookie. I'm doing a tinker bell cookie design and I thought it might take me five hours to do 36 cookies. Its turning into 15 hours and I'm still not done! I still need to add the details of her face. Am I just slow or this is about normal? TIA!

Your going to find bakers on here that have it down to a science, and can be done very quickly. I am an occasional baker, I tried to organize step by step, but for some reason just doesn't work out. If it's only a 2 colored cookie, then I have no problem, but when I have several colors and face details, then your talking a couple of days.

Depends on the design, too. I did 50 Hello Kitty cookies for Macy's Dept store and it took me 3 or 5 hours (been so long I can't remember but it was AT LEAST 3 hrs.) just to decorate. Did 100 simple, one-color cookies shaped like a dog biscuit and I had them decorated AND bagged in an hour.

I have come to accept the fact that I am a slow decorator! With most of my designs I can get 4 cookies done per hour. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It just all depends on how much detail there is. Much of my time is spent outlining the final design, so more detail equals more time.

Hmmm... I can't seem to attach a picture. I will upload it in my photos later. I finished the cookies after a total of 24 hours of just decorating. I'm happy with the results, but boy did it take a long time. A lot of people don't realize how much time goes into these cookies when they eat them. I hope my cousin and his wife will appreciate all my hard work. Thanks for the responses!

Royal icing decorated sugar cookies? I could see an intricate design like tinkerbell taking a LONG time. For a simple 2 color cookie (spiderweb with wet on wet application) it takes me a minute or two. But tinkerbell would take me at least 5 minutes if it involves 5 or so colors.

I did a variety of fall cookies the other day and it took me about 6 hours to do 5 dozen. That doesn't count drying time in between layers, baking, mixing colors, etc. I did it over 2 days. They were pretty basic cookies, so I'm definitely a slow decorator. I think the issue with me is I can't figure out how to organize myself when I do multiple colors. If they were all decorated the same I'm sure it would go faster.

I did a variety of fall cookies the other day and it took me about 6 hours to do 5 dozen. That doesn't count drying time in between layers, baking, mixing colors, etc. I did it over 2 days. They were pretty basic cookies, so I'm definitely a slow decorator. I think the issue with me is I can't figure out how to organize myself when I do multiple colors. If they were all decorated the same I'm sure it would go faster.

my average speed is about 12 cookies an hour ( if you broke down each stage of icing and bundled it into 12 cookies) as I am having trouble explaining. If I am doing cookies I try and do about 30 of each at a time as a minimum so its a whole batch of icing per colour and i work a production line. I just did a wedding which had 150 cookies, background, dots around edges, each guests name and then hand painted each dot and shimmered the whole cookie. Then, had to bag, heat seal and box them into a clear box each and tie with ribbon. I lost count on the cookie time, but just to put into boxes and tie the ribbon took about 5 hours.... crikey...