Mind-Blowing Cake Decorating Tip
by heather
I am not much of a cook, but I like everything that has to do with baking -- as long as it's easy. (Doesn't sound much different than my philosophy of crafting, does it??) I love making cakes and cupcakes, and I think homemade frosting tastes best, BUT I have avoided making my own frosting for the past couple years for one reason. I HATE filling and cleaning icing bags! It's such a mess, and it never quite works as well as I want it to, and it's just generally a nuisance. Instead, I usually buy those readymade frosting sprayers at the grocery store because it just seems easier.
No more. I have found the greatest trick for filling icing bags! This idea is so mindblowing that I actually said "WOW" out loud when I watched this video by Karen's Cookies. Then I made my husband watch the video, and he agreed that it was an awesome tip. You will never avoid using an icing bag again! Thanks to Ashley Newman, who found this video. Watch it below to learn the secret.
Project Estimate:
- Icing bag & tips, on hand
- Plastic wrap, on hand
Total: Free
Photo Credit: Passion for Flowers, licensed via creative commons
WOW! I like the plastic wrap idea. WOW!
Oh my gosh!! What an amazing idea! I hate cleaning out tips and bags, so I usually just fill the corner of a large Ziplock bag and use it as a piping bag. No fancy fluting that way, but still pretty cupcakes and no mess. I wouldn’t mind having to clean a few tips though, with this plastic wrap method. Thanks for sharing this, Heather!
Genius!! Thanks soooo much for sharing this!
God bless you for sharing that.
What a nifty trick! I’m going to give it a shot next time I do some cookie decorating!
All I can say is WOW! What an amazing tip. Thank you so much for sharing….:)
Tracy
Holy cow! That is so ingenious!!
I used to work as a cake decorator, and we ALWAYS filled our frosting bags like this – although we used the fabric bags that can go in the dishwasher instead. If you don’t use the plastic wrap inside the frosting bag, it will stain the heck outta the bag!
Plus, using the plastic wrap inside of the frosting bag makes it easier to control the flow of frosting out of the tip – and with fewer air bubbles! If you ever get frustrated with the amount of air bubbles you get, it’s probably because you’ve spooned the frosting into the bag & there’s an air pocket between each spoonful. With the plastic wrap trick, the frosting stays all in one blob, so there are hardly ever any air bubbles to mess up your design.
I think the most frustrating thing for me was just spooning the frosting into the bag and having it spread out all over the place, but the air bubbles were probably a factor, too. It makes sense that this is what the professionals do.
Oh Em Gee!!!!!! I love this! I’m going to be doing this forever now! I usually hand-wash the piping bag and have always felt that I had to wash it twice. Now I won’t have that problem! YEAH!!! TFS
OMGGGGGGGGG I literally had cupcakes cooling from the oven and was going on my ipad flipping through the days RSS before I went to go frost the cupcakes (and was dreading filling the pastry bag with the icing) and then I saw this like 1 minute before I jumped up to do it… and so I grabbed some plastic wrap, did this…………….. IT WORKS SOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!!! Took like 1 minute to twirl in the bag and then a 30 second clean up! HURRAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was literally jaw dropping for me, thanks so much for sharing!
xx
wow, this is so neat. My daughter just took some decorating classes and we really hated washing the bags afterwards. Thank you for sharing! I’ll pass this on to her, sure she will luuuuuv it!!!
Seriously?? This is genius! Thanks for sharing.
Heather, you are awesome for finding this and sharing it. I always used to have tons of dirty bowls, spoons and bags to clean, this is a great video!
LOVE this! It’s so much better than the usual way!
Wow! Wow! What an awesome idea. I will now make frosting instead of buying. Thank you so much for sharing!
I think I had seen this before and had somehow forgotten it. This will be great for getting cookie icing ready for the family to decorate for Christmas! Just don’t cut off the end until you are ready to use it and it won’t dry out! Thanks.
Wow. The plastic wrap idea is just brilliant- thank you in advance for saving me SO much time, frustration, and procrastination! I can’t wait to try it.
Heather –
I can see why you liked this tip – no clean up – love it. Up until now I was snipping a hole in one corner of a baggie and putting the tip through the snipped corner and using the baggie as a toss-able icing bag. This works, but having a real icing bags thickness and size is so much easier to work with. I can’t wait to try this.
Amazing!!!! I might actually pipe some frosting now! :)
I agree…WOW!
This is wonderful! I took classes years ago and always did cakes and cookies for family and friends but have gotten out of doing it. Just got sick of trying to wash out greasy bags. But I can’t wait to dust off my bags and tips and try this. WOW! Thank you :)
This is FANTASTIC!
Oh my gosh girl!!! You ROCK! What an amazingly simple tip! I’m hitting myself saying WHY did I not think of that! THANK YOU!!
aw man! that’s slap your forehead tip! definitely going to use this tip next time I bake!
duh!!!! thanks for sharing!
This is such an awesome time saver. Thanks for sharing.
Karen, you are a genius! I wish I had seen this video demo before last weekend when I make cupcakes for a baby shower. Your method makes decorating a pleasure. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So happy I found this!!!! What an amazing idea! Can’t wait to try it out! Thanks for posting it!
Karen……..you’re magical – best tip I’ve seen yet. Thanks so much makes cake decorating a breeze.
OMG. As my mouth sat agape, that’s what came out of my mouth. Holy moly. This will make my cake decorating sessions SOOOO much easier!
This is genius! I will from this day forward, never have as much dirty dishes to do after enjoying a little time baking and decorating! Thank you!
Thanks so much for sharing this time-saving, and CLEAN, way to decorate. Love it!
This is sheer genius – saw this link on pinterest. Thank you – this is brilliant!!!
You stole this idea from Cookies By Design!!!!! Please don’t act like you made this up!
@Liz, If you read the article (which you clearly did not), you will see that we credited the video to its originator: Karen’s Cookies. We also credited the person who we found the video from. As with all articles on Dollar Store Crafts, our policy is to credit the original source.
Ok, I can’t seem to locate the video..what IS the trick?
Christy, the video is at the end of our post, or you can view it directly on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxE-pnqmsE0&feature=player_embedded
[...] Pipe onto cupcakes. Here’s a great idea for easy piping bag clean up. [...]
Absolute GENIUS! Greatly appreciate the tip. Will definitely use this next time!
I did read the article. I was referring to Karen.
Another way I’ve seen it is putting the icing bag inside a cup and then spooning icing in that way.
GENIUS! Pure genius! Thank you!
You are a GENIUS! Truly cool and doable for the average person like me!
Aww man! I thought I came up with that idea! It’s a great technique isn’t it?
[...] shape better when there’s a lot of them on top of the meat. Oh and one more thing, check out the video on this page for a great tip on how to load up a pastry bag. No mess and [...]
[...] on the piping technique: I picked up this great tip on how to fill your piping bag, amazing! I wish I knew this sooner. Share this:Like this:LikeBe the [...]
THANK YOU! I quit decorating because it was just too messy and time consuming… this tip is exactly what I needed to know!
LOVE IT!!!! I wished I found this last week! I made a HUGE mess last week icing cupcakes in 3 different colors for my dd’s bday! But, now I know! Thanks so much for sharing!
Wow! Now, do you have a favorite recipe for icing? I struggle with something that tastes good but also looks good.
Kerri, I always beat butter, a bit of vanilla, & then add as much powdered sugar as it can handle until I get the desired stiffness. It’s also yummy if you add some cream cheese to the mixture!
Dude.
Found this through Pinterest.
I’ve decorated cakes since I was 15. That’s {mumble} years.
I have NEVER seen a more common-sense and simple solution to the “I hate to fill and clean bags” problem.
Thank you!!!!
(my fave icing recipe, above all, is the Wilton Snow White Buttercream recipe. I’ve made it with butter, and not Crisco, as well, and it comes out perfect EVERY time. Starts with a meringue, and the texture and flavore are fantastic. EVERY time!)
beck
Absolute genius
This has just blown me away – wow!! Thank you for sharing…..
I can’t wait to try this!!!!!!!!!!
Wow! this is awesome. Thanks to pinterest for leading me here!
That is amazing!! I love that you discovered this, shared it and thank you Pinterest for existing so I could find it. I’m so excited to go and bake something!!!
That is the coolest thing I have ever seen! Awesome! I’m certainly going to try this next time I want to do some decorating!
Wow!!! Thank you so much for sharing that! This will cut down on a lot of stress I have when making birthday cakes.
OMGosh!!! Genius….thanks so much for the saran wrap tip!
HOLY CRAP this is amazingly brilliant! i watched it TWICE it was that awesome….i want to go bake something right now just so i can do that! just………wow……..my mind has been blown :O
Seriously? People are amazing with their creativity. Wow. Thanks for sharing.
I will never fill my pastry bags any other way…thanks for this awesome tip!
thanks for this amazing tip :)
Used this cool tip at a birthday party my daughter went to Saturday afternoon and they thought I was rad (#1 for helping and #2 for using a fun and useful tip.) Thanks for sharing this. =)
A-MA-ZING! Best tip EVER!
The plastic wrap tip is genius, but the red hidden in the blue? Blue doesn’t normally have red dye in it, so those of us who are allergic to red dye assume we’re safe eating cookies made for us with blue icing, or cupcakes with blue frosting. It’s one less insulting “no I can’t have that” we have to say to our friends. Hiding the red dye (one of the more common food allergens) in the blue is not safe.
Seriously this a great idea, i’m not denying it, but isn’t it a bit wasteful to use clingfilm (saranwrap? sorry, don’t know how to spell it…) like this?
@jenni-wren, I don’t think it’s more wasteful than washing half a cup of frosting down the sink, which is what I usually do when I load a bag the traditional way!
Wow…so clever!
You are a GENIUS!! Plastic wrap is now one of my best friends. ;)
Thanks so much for sharing this GREAT tip!
Liz, you epitomize the term “sour grapes.” Unless Cookies By Design has been in business for 50 years, this idea didn’t originate there. Thanks, Karen and Heather for sharing. I’d long forgotten this great idea.
Love this idea. Pinning it!
Yes, this is just what I need! Can’t wait to try it out!
[...] fill your piping bag, I like to use the technique outlined in this mind-blowing video! Easy and saves on mess. Seriously, check this [...]
looks like a realllly good idea, but is the trade off of wasting that much saran wrap worth it, if it really only takes a minute or so of washing the bag, and a bit of patience? this makes too much garbage especially if more than just a couple colors of icing are to be used.
Love it! I always end up using ziplocs and throwing them away, but it’s much nicer to use the bag, no explosions and wasting frosting!! I guess the waste is a draw, either a quart size ziploc or a piece of plastic wrap!!
Thanks for sharing. Using the saran wrap is awesome, but I’ve never tried the rubber band on the end of the bag! Binder clips didn’t work for me, hopefully, the rubber band will!
So so brilliant! Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer
The Kamikaze Shopper
Genius! I will definitely be using this tip when creating my son’s birthday cake! Thanks!
WOW! Just WOW!
OMG…I can’t believe it. I just threw out my decorating bags because they were such a pain to clean. Guess I need to buy more now :-).
I am dying over this trick! Not sure why I am just now seeing it?
I’m excited to see you at CHA Heather! :)
Spectacular idea! Never did my tweaky little crafty brain come up with anything to make decorating this darn easy!
super idea and tip gonna try it this weekend on my cupcakes for my nieces baby shower !!
Please add me to your email list. Thanks.
Thanks for the saran wrap idea – we will be trying that!
We do avoid mixing the food dye colors in our house though, due to food dye allergies.
I found this yesterday, tried it today…SUCH A GREAT IDEA!! It worked like a charm!! I teach cake decorating classes and will definitely be teaching this trick to my students!
I’m a little late finding out about this one, and am not really adding anything to the discussion, but I just had to add my “Oh wow! How cool is that!”. I want to mix up a batch of icing now just to try it out, but then I’d have to make sugar cookies or cupcakes too… Hmmm, maybe tomorrow…
I just use a sandwhich bag and throw it away when I am done. Of course I don’t use all the extra tips.
Found this tutorial via Pinterest. Tried it. And I’m so thankful! It works really well- icing became much more easier. Thank you for sharing. :)
This is so ingenious. I love tidbits like this they are so helpful. Thanks for posting!
Ann
Sad that the video is no long there :(
@Jami – it is there for me! Also, if you click on the lower right corner of the video where it says “YouTube,” it will take you to the Youtube page where the video is.
You are awesome! Thank you :)
Mind. Blown.
OMG IT WORKS! Like a dream! Thank you a hundred times. I am definitely never going back. I love this. You’re an awesome person for sharing this with the world!!!
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