Preparation for a Large Order

Hi Belle, I had to produce over Christmas 500 cookies a week, it was crazy, many late nights. All you need is a massive table, chair on wheels to go around the table. I suggest bake them all in one day, flood them all next day, day after do you final detail and day after wrap. 

WOW! I don't know if I would ever attempt that many! I am a little nervous about 110! lol I guess knowing its brush embroidery too, I tried to push her towards doing some ribbon roses instead knowing I could do that prep in advance but you can't really do any BE in advance!

I can't wait to hear more on this subject. It's one of the things that holds me back from wanting to sell cookies and people ask quite a bit.

You can take your times, how much time you need to parepare Doug, bake them.  I thing you only need a day for baking this amount of cookies.  I think it is more important to take times on how much time do you need for one cookie to calculate.  I have made hundreds too, but not all takes to much time.  The first layer decoration can be ready on half day if the weather is ok.   Your first cookies may take more time but once you are on it it would be faster.   When I want to calculate times I made a test first (an informal ones), write your times of dry and times for brush embroidery, so you would have an idea of how much time you will need.  I check the weather for the days I will be working with royalicing to know if I have to improve... you can acelerate the time of dry with fans.

Baking and freezing ahead of time is a great idea.  In fact, to streamline even more I make several bags of "cookie mix" in advance, with all the dry ingredients.  Then when I am ready to make the dough, I make as many batches as I can, one after the other (since I don't have a commercial-size mixer). I divide the dough into manageable chunks  (about a half-batch, which makes 4  dozen or so) and freeze that.  So this way I always have dough ready to go on short notice.

I would go ahead and bake and freeze the cookies now, so all you will have to do is ice and decorate when the time comes.

The only tip I have for the icing is to color it all at once, more than you think you will need, so you don't have to worry about matching the color if you run out.    Then you can store it in small airtight containers and just thin it to the right consistency as you need it.  Nothing frustrates me more than having to color more icing when I am almost done!

Good luck!

I've never stored my iced cookies in the fridge or freezer because icing is likely to sweat in the fridge.  I think you can leave cookies in the room temperature until you finish decorating even if it takes a week.

I usually store my cookie dough and icing in the freezer though, and it is no problem.

I am a hobby baker and did 150 cookies for a charity event last summer.  I used the assembly line technique described by Adri's Shop.  Well in advance, I made dough and froze it (I usually keep a couple of batches in the freezer anyway).  I rolled, cut, and baked all in one day. I made the icing that same night and let it rest (no coloring involved, it was all white).   I flooded them all the next day.  I used wafer papers (which took a surprising amount of time) and got all of them cut and applied the following day, and the next day I piped shell borders on all of them.  The final day I packaged them.  I used fans for drying all of the layers.  I gave myself an extra day in my planning so I had one day where they just sat, all wrapped up, and a day of travel also (the event was 350 miles away).  Despite many days of preparation and handling, the cookies tasted delicious at the event.  I had one for breakfast to make sure :-)