Cool thread. Thanks to all the CbyD people who have replied.
I ordered a bouquet many years ago now, and was disappointed in the taste of the cookies, but loved the design. It started a love affair with cookies that I have made into my hobby.
I've never painted my RI on before. I'll have to try it.
why is there a drill being used? Why can't they just bake the cookies with the sticks in it? After the hole is drilled, what is stopping the cookie from turning around on the stick or falling off if it is accidentally tipped or something like that?
someone had mentioned quick drying cement for the assembly??? What do they use that for?
TIA
Some days you were baking hundreds of cookies besides mixing and making the gourmets. (more if a holiday was involved) To put a stick in during baking would slow the process way too much. In the shop I worked, the baker would drill the holes and move to the decorating racks. The decorators would decorate and then move to assembly. There are 1-inch increment sticks starting at 6" to 14"+. The assembler decides what length stick goes on what cookie. If the cookie would spin on a stick, we would fill the hole with a bit of icing to stick. Cookies baked for holiday orders are often baked in huge quantities and frozen. Having sticks on cookies would take too much space in freezers as well.
Hmmm...cement...our shop never used that bt maybe it was for weight in a basket?
kos
makes sense. Thanks. now all we need to do if figure out their icing.
ONLY thing I know about them is they are ASTRONOMICALLY expensive! Like OMG expensive. LOL
I've never had them but would kinda like to get a bouquet just to dissect it lol
Man are they expensive. Don't you wish that you could charge that kind of money?? 
And I have thought the exact same thing about buying a basket to check it out. Maybe one day I will...but not anytime soon. Too expensive.
But I would love to learn secrets.
They freeze their cookies my sister worked there and told me everything. She did have to sign some sort contract thing. I have not read therough this while thread but I may be able to answer some questions
I worked for a company that uses them a lot and I've also ordered/seen things from Houston and Louisiana. I have seen LOTS of the bouquets as a result and I can honestly say I've never seen one as perfect as the pictures. That's not to say some of them weren't wonderful - some of them were very poorly done - most were somewhere in between. It depends on who's doing the decorating.
I'm so curious as to how they train the decorators, does anyone know? Do they have an experienced decorator that comes in, do they send employees to a central location, train at a franchise location, etc? Better yet, what about when a new design is created??
Afterall, I'm assuming that regardless of all the franchise locations across the US, all the cookies have to be decorated exactly the same way, right?
they just practice, practice, practice. my sister use to bring home boxes of cookies everyday that she practiced on. well that was until she told me how much fat one cookie had then i told her to keep them away
A few years ago, I worked for Cookie Creations. We used the drill for our cookies also. We made the containers up in advance....like once a week. We used plaster of Paris to hold the sticks in position. We had an arrangement of sticks for 2 to 12 cookies. The sticks were different lengths and positioned so you would be able to see all of the cookies.
When we were ready to make a bouquet up, we took two sheets of tissue paper and laid it over the top of all of the sticks. We then pushed the paper down to the bottom of all of the sticks and left the corners up around the base of the sticks.
We then took each decorated cookie, drilled the hole, squirted a bit of the icing in the hole, and stuck it on the stick, which was already anchored in the container.
When you are doing hundreds of cookies a day, this system works great.
I have the icing recipe we used, which I have broken down, in size, for my own personal use. I love it because it tastes good, gets solid enough to stack the cookies, yet does not dry hard. I have a pic of some cookies I did for my grandson using this icing. I will add a link to it. We did most of our fill in using a #2 or 3 decorating tip. This icing was made the consistency to use that way. You could use this to make your outline but would have to thin it for flood work.
Cutout Cookie Icing
3 egg whites, at room temp. (you can also use MP)
Whip 2 min., fast speed or until stiff.
Add:
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. powdered sugar
Mix.
Add:
2 Tbs. Crisco
Mix on low speed until smooth.
(If you want to make a glaze from this, just add a little hot water.)
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=998653
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1295655
Hi. I'm new to the forum and thoroughly enjoyed reading all these posts.
I'd love to know how they pack the bouquet of cookies into the containers. Do they use styrofoam, floral foam? How do they attach this to their container? How do they make it where you can't see the sticks in the arragement?
Hi. I'm new to the forum and thoroughly enjoyed reading all these posts.
I'd love to know how they pack the bouquet of cookies into the containers. Do they use styrofoam, floral foam? How do they attach this to their container? How do they make it where you can't see the sticks in the arragement?
Hi. I'm new to the forum and thoroughly enjoyed reading all these posts.
I'd love to know how they pack the bouquet of cookies into the containers. Do they use styrofoam, floral foam? How do they attach this to their container? How do they make it where you can't see the sticks in the arragement?
Cookies By Design has their own containers made. There are places for all of the sticks to slide down into so they are perfectly arranged.
Sheesh! Is anyone else not getting email notices on this thread? 
I just started after I posted, but for months I had not. Hmph.
What a cool thread. I've always wondered how DBD does their stuff.
Keep the info coming!
I'm very interested in the containers with holes ready for the sticks. I know they special order, but any tips for those of us who would like to set something like that up to save time?
And how does the drill work without the cookie crumbling? Just the thickness of the cookies?
Cutout Cookie Icing
3 egg whites, at room temp. (you can also use MP)
Whip 2 min., fast speed or until stiff.
Add:
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. powdered sugar
Mix.
Add:
2 Tbs. Crisco
Mix on low speed until smooth.
(If you want to make a glaze from this, just add a little hot water.)
Never thought to use Crisco... I'll have to try it though...
Thank you to all of you that shared your work experiences with the different cookie companies. The cake with the file will be arriving shortly!
I love the idea of the pots with the sticks in them already so they are ready to do. I don't care how all of you feel about the designs, I'm still in awe of how beautiful they look. It still takes talent!
Thanks again for all the tips!
I love this thread, I am going to make some cookies for my kids school this weekend. Thanks everyone!
jouj, if you mix grease of any kind with royal it breaks down. I've heard of mixing corn syrup in it but not shortening.
IMHO, Shortening/butter only affects royal because of how/what you are making. Royal is basically a meringue as it's sugar and eggs whipped for ten flippin minutes (i would never have the patience, how do you all do it??) Adding grease to a meringue breaks down the whites and they cannot hold all the air bubbles that you are trying to whip into them.
On the other hand, if you start with a shortening/butter based icing and add some meringue powder you get a crusting buttercream. There are a lot of threads on here about crusting buttercream and whether the meringue powder actually does anything. The general consensus seems to be.. maybe. The basic idea is that it helps it firm up a bit faster and stabilizes it so it can stand up to high humidity/heat conditions. I don't think it works as well for the cakers because they use much thicker layers of icing. I've used it once and as long as i left it for 24hrs it firmed up completely and was still soft and edible. (i have a pic)
Basically, the oil/egg white rule depends on what you are trying to do with your whites. If you want them whipped stiff and full of air then yes stay far away from oil. If you just want to boost stability and drying time in another icing then, IMO, you're fine.
Judging from the ingredients list someone posted earlier and from the pics on their website, I would hazard a guess that they use some sort of shortening based crusting buttercream. You can see the piped lines in the small filled in areas because the consistency is so much thicker than other icings. To get the background smooth they probably trowel the stuff on then scrape the top smooth. Actually, other areas look so smooth that they may have used a rbc, but it's hard to tell. If you look at the "chicks in disguise" basket they have up now, some of the details on the eggs are definitely not piped.
Sorry this is so long. I'm kind of bored right now...
Hey Bobwonderbuns -- I haven't been getting emails on this thread either. And for me, the first time I posted on here was only a few months ago.
And actually, if I start a post, I don't get emails about them anymore. I have to go and find them. I don't mind, it's not that hard. I just go to the watched topics. It's just much easier when you get that little email. =o)
Yes, I've been having a lot of email issues lately, but hey, it could be worse! After all, if it's not one thing it's two! 
The royal icing cannot hold up to any sort of grease -- either the meringue powder recipe or the egg white recipe. Egg whites themselves cannot tolerate any grease either, so that's likely what's breaking down.
But as they say, practice practice practice!
I added the shortening to the icing recipe. It was ok. It harded to the touch but was soft if pressed on. I could not stack them on top of each other because they would mess up. I think maybe next time I might only add half of the shortening.
I'd like to revive this thread!
Someone on here said that the icing recipe is no big secret....does anyone know it?
I thought they used a royal icing but I could be wrong on that. I've had their cookies before and they didn't taste like a glace icing.
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