I'm just wondering how much time you insist apon for people ordering your cookies, so that you have time to do the cookies? I've seen websites saying that the cookies will be shipped overnight or next day and wonder how in the world they can bake and decorate and have the cookies set enough to send them on their way that quickly?

I'm still considering selling my cookies from home but am a little concerned about the amount time i should insist people give me for their order. I want to be able to give them the product quick enough, but not so quick that i will be pulling my hair out to get it done. I'd hate to discourage business because people don't have enough forethought to call me for the cookies. Especially when just starting up.

Have any of you tried baking your cookies on sticks and freezing them so that you can just pull out the kind of cookie you need, thaw and decorate? Does it affect the flavor or length of time it remains fresh?

Ahhh so many questions, my mind is always thinking about these things.

Depending on my schedule--if busy, I ask for 1 week. If not busy, 2 days--that gives me 1 day to make and bake and the 2nd day to decorate and dry.

I have had cookies frozen for up to 2 months without freezer taste. I wrap them in plastic wrap and seal in a freezer bag. I have done this plain and decorated.

I just tell people "The special icing I use has to sit for 24 hours before I can add another layer of colors or bag it." (Whether it does or not is immaterial ... people accept this explanation as the reason why I need 2-3 days to make 'em!)

A lot of CCers use Penny's cookie recipe and No Fail sugar cookie recipes and from what I have read they freeze them all the time so the results must be good.

I have frozen Penny's and they came out just fine. Don't know about freezing them with the stick might take up lots more space?

Check out the cookie forum, great information there. Best of luck!

Banba--
Love your avatar--it makes me smile!

I usually need 4 days to make the cookies (about 50). Once my teacher told me that I could make the cookies, freeze them (without no decoration) and then when I need them she told me to thaw them and then put them in the oven for 5 minutes. I haven´t try it yet but it sounds good to me.

Thanks for your input everyone.
suz

I usually say I need 1 week. Then whatever works for me. I definitely need 3 days for an order

Minimum of 3 days, longer preferred.

Minimum 2 days depending on my schedule. I cut, bake and base ice on the first day, decorate on the 2nd, bag on the 3rd day. If I have a rush order, I will do all the above, but let dry 4-6 hours then decorate on the same day, bag the next.

I'll leave the time-line to the pros, but I did see your question about freezing cookies on sticks. I haven't frozen, but see several people have. My initial thought is that if you froze on sticks, that you could have a higher likelyhood of breakage. Bakinccc had an excellent idea to bake the cookies (although I don't think she freezes) and then drill holes into them for the sticks. It might be easier to do in the long run. Here is the link to her forum post: http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-600104.html Hope that helps a bit!

I say one week lead time. I am getting better about sticking to it. The only time I have frozen cookies is when I have had a huge order. I know others have had a lot of luck doing so though.

TracyLH - I want to make sure people know that I wouldn't really recommend drilling holes in cookies as a regular thing. Very nerve-wracking!!! It only helped me in a very difficult bind so if you're in that situation you could try that instead of starting over.

For the freezing, I've frozen many cookies on sticks but they take up a lot of room! I've always frozen cookies with excellent results. Never a problem with quality or breakage. As a matter of fact for most every order I bake one day, freeze, then pull out the next day or later to frost. After they're baked, even if I plan to frost them the very next day I'll put them in the freezer overnight. I want to keep them as fresh, fresh, fresh as possible. So for me the freezing works well.

And I usually ask for 1 week lead-time. I also tell them that holidays are usually 2 weeks or more. HTH!!

bakincc - how do you normally put your sticks into your cookies that you freeze? That would make my life much easier to open the freezer and have them already on sticks.

Oops! Sorry, bakinccc! I guess I wasn't much help! I mentioned your forum post somewhere else, so I better find that! SO sorry about that!

TracyLH - no problem at all!!

Toleshed - After I cut out my cookies I put about 5 or 6 of them on a cookie sheet placed the right way with room between so I can push the sticks into them. All the sticks will be toward the "inside" of the cookie sheet, none hang over the edge if you know what I mean.

Then I hold the stick above the cookie to measure how far I'd like to push it into the cookies. I hold the stick at that point so I'll never push the stick in too far. Now push the very tip of the stick into the cookie, look at the rest of the stick to make sure it's all at that right level, hold the heel of your free hand gently on top of the cookie and push the stick in to the point you had marked with your fingers. This is so hard to describe!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you're getting what I mean.

If you make your cookies thinner than 1/2" then some of the other suggestions may work really well, but for 1/2" thick, heavy cookies this is how I've done it. HTH!!!! Good luck!!

lol think I got it. You need to make a video. I've tried several different things and always go back to "gluing" them on which I hate the looks of. So maybe I'll give this a try. Thanks