How to Use a Pastry Bag to Decorate a Cake
Ordering a cake from a bakery can be expensive. Begin the process of decorating your own cakes at home by learning how to use a pastry bag to decorate a cake. Using a pastry bag cuts down on time and gives a more professional look to the homemade cake. Read on for steps to get you started with a pastry bag.
- Difficulty:
- Moderate
Instructions
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1
Buy pastry bags at a bakery supply shop or use an online baker's supply such as Kitchenkrafts. The disposable bags are much easier in terms of cleanup and work as well as the long term use bags that you have to wash. You will also want to purchase couplers, coupler screws and decorating tips of different sizes.
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2
Prepare the icing that will cover the cake. Make white icing and use food coloring to tint the icing to the color that you want to decorate the cake.
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3
Cut the tip of the disposable pastry bag off so that the coupler fits snugly at the end of the bag. Place the tip that you will be decorating with over the end of the coupler. Set the screw over the tip and tighten so that no icing will ooze out from the sides of the coupler.
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4
Hold the tip end of the pastry bag facing the ground. Fold the open end of the bag around your hand. Make a space at the tip end of the bag for filling with icing.
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5
Load a long spatula with icing and scrape icing off the spatula into the tip end of the bag. Fill bag with icing up to the level that it is folded over your hand.
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6
Unfold the open end of bag and shake icing down into the tip end. Twist the open end of bag to close. Squeeze icing out of the bag using your palm and fingers. Control the tip end with the other hand to keep a steady flow of icing.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Take a cake decorating class at a local craft store such as Michael's or Joann's.
Don't fill the pastry bag too full of icing. It will be difficult to squeeze the icing out and you will not have good control of the flow of icing from the pastry bag.
