I bake only for friends and family, but that is still a LOT of cookies with a big family. I make as many as 8 batches of cookie dough on a single day, in various flavors. Each batch is really a double batch. I divide the batch in fourths, and roll each section out between two sheets of parchment paper, then slide the ‘leaf’ of dough into a plastic bread bag that I buy on a roll of 300 at Amazon. The dough ‘leaf’ fits perfectly, and I tape it closed. Also, I do not roll my dough to the final thickness, I do that after it defrosts.
I also make my Royal icing up to a VERY stiff consistency, as I have found that after refrigeration or freezing it loosens up a little, and I don’t like adding more powdered sugar to it to stiffen it back up. Sort of like what happens when an icing bag is worked with during the day, and the icing separates or thins. To lessen that issue in the bags of colored icing (separation), I store the icing bags also in the refrigerator between uses. I make up a complete solid ‘crayola’ box of colors, then a complete set of pastels, and finally a complete set of tonal like navy, burgundy, olive, sienna, flesh color, mustard. This gives me a broad working palette. This color mix is not stored in bags though, I use 8 oz plastic tubs like they use in the Deli department for salad or food you buy. This lets me more efficiently stack them, restir, adjust for color, and use only what I need in a piping bag. For a three month session of cookie decorating (I kind of work in themes), this works so perfectly. I make my Christmas/Valentine red up in a triple batch and divide in half, freezing one half for Feb. I make my red for Christmas at the beginning of Dec so it has lots of time to fully develop in the fridge/freezer as well. Same with Black, make it early, let it develop. Color slightly less deep than you want, and let it develop. That will keep you from over saturating the color. You can always add more gel, but you can’t take any out, and the amount of powdered sugar you’d need to add to desaturate would ruin the ratios in the icing… so dye lighter than what you think you want. I promise, it WILL deepen, and as it dries, it also gets darker as well.
In the fall I mix up cookie dough in pumpkin spice, maple, coconut, buttery dough, princess, chocolate, almond, butter pecan. In the spring I make up blueberry, cherry, vanilla, lemon, orange, lime, almond, buttery dough, and sometimes princess. I use the Lorann flavor extracts, and my personal favorite is the Maple and almond.
I can not letter with icing to save my soul though, and I hated using projectors as I ended up with a mess. I am not good at this one decorating skill. Instead, I have every stencil known to mankind. I stencil the letting, even using tape to block out stuff on one stencil to repurpose it for something else. Maybe a Happy from one Happy Birthday stencil and then a Thankgiving only from a Happy Thankgiving stencil. I have pieces of stencil material that I use to mask as well. One I have got the stenciling on for my sentiment, and it is dry, I then go over the stencil with the same color of icing and add serif puffs, accentuate lines, and make it LOOK like it was pipped, lol. That saves me SO MUCH TIME. Same with transfers. Sometimes it is much easier to pipe a transfer as there is no risk of buggering up an otherwise perfectly decorated cookie… you can swipe and wipe away a messy transfer with no damage to a cookie, but if you mess up freehand piping it on a decorated cookie, and don’t like it, it is MUCH harder to swipe it off without having to start the cookie from scratch.
SO prep doughs as much as 3 months in advance. Prep STIFF icing (I use 2/3 of a cup of water to 5 1/2 T of Genies Dream or Judees meringue powder to 2 lb of powdered sugar). FREEZE fully covered. Mix up basic color palettes in 8 oz container (red and black I use 16 oz). Use STENCILS for letting. Use air brushing to add definitions or shading if you like doing this. Use icing transfers. Last year I made 12 advent christmas nativity calenders for family. No way I could have got them done in 1 week if I had not set up for them early.
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