I'm making a NFSC bouquet w/antonias icing. The bouquet is going to be mailed out on Tuesday. I figure it will most likely take 2-3 days to get where it is going. This is my current time line:

Sat - make dough, bake cookies, ice, dry
Sun- do fine detail work
Mon - package up
Tues - ship out

Does anyone on here see anything wrong with me either just making the dough on Friday or making the dough and baking the cookies on Friday? I want these cookies to be fresh when the person receives them but by then, it will nearly be closing in on a week. I can still ice Saturday and follow the same timeline from that point on, or if you all think they would be fine baked AND iced on Friday, I can do the detail work on Saturday and package up on Sunday. The only thing is, they will still be mailed out on Tuesday, regardless.

Any suggestions for the freshest NFSC? Thank you.

On the few occasions where I've had to ship cookies, I did the following:

Baked on Saturday morning
Began decorating Saturday afternoon
Finished decorating and outlining on Sunday
Packaged Monday afternoon and ran it to the Post Office before they closed

Luckily, the Post Office is just a block from my house!

Easily, you could bake the cookies a good week in advance and pop them into the freezer. Make sure they're bagged well (I go a step further and place the bagged cookies into plastic containers). Take them out to thaw before decorating. Once they're packaged, they'll stay pretty fresh for about 5 days.

Thank you for the reply. Do you think baking and icing on Saturday would just be best then? Does it make sense to bake and freeze on Friday, only to thaw Saturday morning? I have plans until Saturday mid afternoon, so that is when I would start icing. How long does it typically take a cookie to thaw, and does it affect the taste? Thank you!

In my opinion, freezing doesn't have an impact on the flavor or texture of the cookie...as long as the cookies are packaged well. Some people may have more sensitive taste buds than mine, but I can't tell the difference between a cookie that's been frozen and one that's not. They thaw pretty quick. I've waited about an hour to start decorating after I've placed them on wire racks, single layer, to thaw. Hope that helps!

It does help, it might make my weekend less stressful. Do you leave the cookies in a bag to thaw? Or are they thawed "naked"? Thanks again!

Thank you so much .. This is all very helpful to me!

Another question I have is, are the cookies really only "fresh" for five days after baking? If this is the case, they may not taste the best when they receive them almost five days after baking?

Ay yi yi ...

I would figure 5 days after bagging, not 5 days after baking. They'll still be fine after that, just not quite fresh enough to be "fresh". Most people probably won't even be able to tell that the freshness factor has decreased. But since I know exactly what the cookies taste like when they are ultra fresh, I can tell when they've gotten older.

Thank you!