Cali4Dawn, Please help! Cup Cakes......

Start baking!!!!! Yesterday!!!!

You can bake and freeze them as long as you take the time to freeze them properly. You must keep moisture from getting to them. You will get 4,000 different pieces of advice on how to freeze them. And I'm sure they all work. Here's how I do it:

Place them in a cake box (or any box, for that matter- even a brown paper bag works). You can layer them with a layer of wax-paper in between the layers. After closing the cake-box, I place the box inside of a trash bog and tie off. I place inside the freezer. When you remove from the freezer. Leave them in the box until thoroughly thawed.

If you don't have enough room in your freezer for 200 cupcakes, you can bake them at least 3 days in advance with no problems. Store them in a cake box or other box in a cool room.

You can ice them three 3 days in advance also. I've pushed it at 5 before. They still taste very fresh.

So, if they are due on December 23 and you need 200+, and you can't start baking now and freezing, here is my plan based on your work schedule (it'll be tough, but you can do it!!- Grannies never fail!!):

at 24 cupcakes per batch (I get 27- but we'll stick to the generalizations for ease of your math), 9 batches will be 216 cakes.

You will make all of your icing on Saturday or Sunday. On Sunday you will bake at least 3 batches of cakes. On Monday you will bake 3 more batches and ice and decorate the batch from the day before. You will do the same on Tuesday and Wednesday.

If you have room in your freezer for even a few cupcakes, bake them and store now. Make it as easy on yourself as possible.

How are you going to decorate them? Keep it easy! Don't do anything super fancy. Just make it "look" fancy.

I messed up one point:

I said: "Leave them in the box until thoroughly thawed. "

It should be:

Leave them in the box AND BAG until thoroughly thawed.