Make a Piping Bag
A piping bag doesn't need to come ready made from the kitchen store. There are various ways to hack one at home, using everyday items you'll probably have close to hand.
Contents
Steps
Plastic bag piping bag
- Find a suitably sized resealable bag. Open it.
- Scoop in the frosting. Do it just the same way that you'd scoop frosting into a normal piping bag.
- Cut off one corner tip of the resealable bag. Keep the hole fairly small, you don't want the frosting oozing everywhere.
- Squeeze gently to pipe on a cake or cookie. There will be enough force to expel the frosting from the bag, so don't squeeze too hard.
Paper piping bag
- Find a suitably sized piece of parchment paper. Fold over into a triangle shape; folding will double its strength. Cut out the triangle.
- Hold the paper triangle by grasping the center of the long side between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. With the right hand, roll the top corner down to the center of the triangle. Hold the paper in this position with the right hand.
- With the left hand, roll the bottom corner up to complete the cone.
- Adjust the cone so that the point is completely closed and the point is sharp. Fold down the loose edges of the open end of the cone so that it does not unroll.
- Fold the open end several times so that it is tightly closed. With scissors, cut off a very small piece of the tip of the cone.
- At this point, you can make the piping cone more effective, drop in a piping nozzle in the shape of choice. This makes the piping more accurate and the style of piping is completely controlled by the nozzle choice.
- Fill with the icing, cream or other piping ingredient. Hold the cone between the thumb and fingers as shown. It's now ready for piping.
Tips
- Place the bag in a tall cup for filling so you won't have to hold it.
- A chip clip or one of those black office folder clips makes keeping the bag shut and rolled tight while filling easy.
- Pipe out a small line on some extra paper to work out any air bubbles.
- Keep the roll tight and the hole small for fine details. Try a little snip first then you can make it bigger if needed.
- Have a sterilized pin handy to push out any dried icing from a nozzle end.
- The bigger the triangle, the bigger the cone and vice versa.
- A caulking-gun-like frosting gun or cookie press with adapter is stronger and more precise, if less smooth.
Warnings
- Filling the bag loosely with any thing will result in lots of air bubbles, resulting in sloppy work and scribbled writing.
Things You'll Need
- 1 resealable plastic bag
- 1 roll of parchment paper
- Scissors
- Piping tips and a coupler (optional)
- Something to fill the bag with and something to pipe on!
Related Articles
- Decorate Cupcakes
- Make a Rose With Cake Icing
- Make a Cake Decorating Bag
- Improvise a Pastry Bag
