I have been making cookies for my family and friends about a year and I am thinking about starting a home bakery business. I received info from my local county on becoming legal. The thing that stumps me most is letting the cookies dry. I normally let them sit out on cookie racks with a wax paper lightly over them but I would like to find a way to store them covered/sealed. How do you store your cookies while waiting to dry? Thanks!

Ally

I just have mine on cookie racks on the counter, but often wonder if I should cover them. I never have a huge quantity and bag them the next morning, but I'll bump this to see what others do.

I do the same thing. I just leave them on the wire racks until they are dry. Then I bag them after about 12-15 hours or so. I do put them in another room where there's no traffic.

I have a rack that holds 4 trays at a time. I made a cover out of vinyl that goes over the whole stand, so the cookies dry without the designs being damaged, but they aren't totally out in the air.

I am actually researching this right now as I have 120 plus cookies taking over a table in the dining room. I am going to ask my DH to build me a 'housing' that will hold trays that I can slide in and out. If I can find a picture of what I am thinking, I will post it. Months ago I saw someone post a pic of what was made for them. I was going to buy vinyl to make a cover as well. I just need something beyond horizontal space! Now to find sheets that are a good price to slide in. I'll post what I find.

Not too long ago, someone posted their hint of placing the cookies in pizza boxes. The boxes close, so that's nice, plus they stack. I'm still in the process of stock piling unused pizza boxes...I loved this idea!

One of my friends is a home baker as well and she has 2 of these http://www.aaacommercialproducts.com/bakeryracks.html#anchor01 For cookies, cakes... and you can buy the vinyl thing to hang on them. She found an awesome deal on craigslist in the business section, less than $50 each!

I'm not quite so sophisticated. I do have some of the big bakery trays for those racks (she gave them to me because her racks came with over 100 trays). So, I use 2 cooling racks and then put a pan on top, cookies on the pan, leaving space for the next set of cooling racks. put the racks on the tray of cookies, and then another tray on top.

I use sheet boxes as well if the order is big enough.

I use the same racks as Bonniebakes. They're readily available in kitchenware stores and some grocery stores, and they're inexpensive. (Bed, Bath & Beyond, WalMart, and Michael's and Joann's) Wilton makes one, too.
But if you frequently will be making dozens and dozens of cookies at a time, you might want to invest in those commercial racks.

I use a bun rack.
Got it from these guys.

http://www.hnrsupply.com/

I have to get the pics of my camera from the cake show this weekend, so before I do that, I'll take a picture of my "cover" on the cookie rack I use and I'll post it. I just bought the vinyl at the fabric store and sewed it together myself.. it was really easy (I'm not much of a sewer!)

i read somewhere (aaargh, i cannot remeber where but it was a cookie book) that cookies need to dry in the open, not a covered space. i have always done it that way, but i always worry the cookie itself will get dry (but they never do). i dry them on cookies sheets in the my most draft-free room (my house is 160 years old...very "air conditioned", lol....we call that "charm" is new england).

i dry mine overnight and bag them first thing in the morning.

tracy - i am glad to see you survived the cookie weekend!

diane

Oh, those commercial drying racks are cool! I can't find the pic of the one someone made and posted months ago, but I did e-mail it to my DH as a "Oh! This is cool!" and he thinks he may have printed it out. If we can locate it, I will post the pic. Currently, he is planning to build one either way. I am asking me to make it collapesable as I need to be able to take it up and down as needed.

Diane - Oh, I am not out of the woods yet! I am almost done piping about 130 worms and then need to finish up the leaves, but I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel! Whew!

here's a picture of my drying rack with the cover on it. It holds 4 jelly roll pans.

Thanks for the thread. I too mainly bake for family and friends and normally living them in the formal dining room to dry. This is a great idea. Will have to add to the "honey dew" list.

I was too having the issue of all my cookie sheet/jelly roll pans taking up my whole dining room table. Plus, I was putting WAY too much trust in my 2 1/2 year old as they were in plain site. So I went to out local Pizza Hut and asked the manager what her would charge me for unused pizza boxes. After I told him what they were for, he gave me four of them, no charge! They are great, because you can stack them.
I was also wondering, do most of you cookie decorators individually wrap all your cookies? I have very few orders, so far, for wrapped cookies. So, I have mostly been boxing them up in cake boxes for delivery.

I also use pizza boxes. They hold quite a few cookies, and can be stacked. I leave them overnight, then bag the next day. Never had a problem with drying out.

Sarah I individually wrap each cookie in a cello bag and heat seal the top for freshness before attaching ribbon.

Gemini - You are right to worry about that. I was attaching a mini cookie onto a larger one last night and placed them on a sheet so I could move them around as I had a large number. My sheet had a slight warp to it and luckily I noticed that the leaves were sliding before they were set. I quickly fixed them and set them on the counter until they were good to go and then transferred them to my temporary cookie drying rack that I threw together last night. I used 4 oz. jelly jars to give space in between the cookies and was able to put around 120 of 4 1/4 cookies on them. I used to use small juice glasses, but I it wasn't sturdy enough, so I used the 4 oz. size jar and it was perfect. I saw that someone used canning jar lids to give the gap, but I needed more height as it was a cookie-on-cookie and I wanted more space for the air flow idea Diane mentioned. I used my cooling racks as trays, putting foil on the bottom so any stray cookie crumbs would not drop down onto the next level along with a few cookie sheets. My DH is still planning to build one and is thinking to make the housing out of plastic. Once it is done, I will post a pic, but it wont be any time soon as he is knee deep in other renovation projects. Here is a pic of what I improvised with last night:

Tracy - Where did you buy your cookie sheets pans? They are so nice!!!

Those are not the cookie sheets I use for baking. They came with an oven we bought a few houses ago and baked horribly, so I just use them as trays to transport cookies as I work on them/move them to dry. For baking, I use AirBake.

I love the cooling racks though as they are sturdy and large (16" x 20"). I got them at Sur La Table when I was in a bind as I couldn't find others large enough that day when I needed them.