Piping onto cakes adds colour and texture and in this tutorial I'm going to share 15
piping hacks to make piping easier.
Let's start with the basics: how to fit a piping bag with a piping tip.
Drop your tip into the piping bag and push it to the end and then use scissors to score
about halfway up the piping tip. Push the piping tip out of the way, cut along the
line you scored and then when you push the tip back down it should sit snugly within the bag.
Before we go any further let's talk about how to choose a piping tip. They come in lots of
different shapes and sizes and keep in mind the size of your cake and the size of your
decorations, for example the 1M tip on the left is perfect for a rope border on top of an 8 inch cake
but the #199 tip on the right is more suitable for a nest on top of a tiny 4 inch cake.
Another basic but useful hack: how to fill a piping bag without making a mess.
You can spoon frosting straight into a piping bag but you'll probably get frosting all over
the edges of the bag and that will get all over your hands when you pipe. Instead,
fold the top of the bag over before spooning the buttercream in or even better, use a glass and
fold the top of the bag over the rim of the glass to hold the piping bag open while you fill it.
Unfold the bag and it will be clean as you hold it to pipe. Grip the bag and push the
frosting down to the piping tip and then twist the bag to apply pressure to the frosting,
which makes it much easier to squeeze through the tip so much less strain on your wrist.
Don't fill the bag more than three-quarters full or it will be difficult to grip onto as you pipe.
Before you pipe onto a cake, chill the cake for at least an hour in the fridge to set the frosting on
the cake and that way you can rest your piping tip right up against the cake without damaging
the frosting on the cake and since the frosting on the cake is cold and firm and not soft and sticky
anymore, the frosting you're piping won't pick up any of the frosting from the cake, which would
then blend with the colour in the piping bag. Also, frosting is heavy so when you're doing a lot
of piping it's a really good idea to have a cold cake which is firmer and more stable and won't
droop underneath the weight of the frosting you're piping. To pipe swirls with two different colours
put your piping tip into a piping bag and fold it over a glass to hold it open and then spoon
one colour of frosting into one half of the bag, pushing it against that side of the bag and then
spoon another colour into the other half, pushing the colours down with your spatula and then shake
the bag a few times before you twist it so that both colours go right down to the piping tip and
that way they'll both come out together when you pipe. To double check you can squeeze to
pipe a little bit of frosting into a bowl first until both colours come out at the same time.
To incorporate even more colours into your piping spread out a piece of plastic wrap like cling film
or saran wrap and pipe or spread lines of coloured frosting along it. Use as many colours as you like
and of course the wider and longer the area you cover with these lines, the more frosting you'll
have so the more swirls you'll be able to pipe onto your cake. Roll it into a log and cut off one
end and then push that end down into the piping bag and cutting it means that all of the colors
will come out together to pipe beautiful colourful swirls or whatever style of piping you like.
Couplers are another way to effortlessly create designs with lots of colours or textures,
or both. Couplers come in two pieces. Push the bigger piece down to the end of a piping bag
and then you'll attach the piping tip over the outside of the piping bag,
screwing it on with the ring that comes with the coupler and that will hold it in place
as you pipe. Use the piping bag as normal and when you want to use that piping tip
with another colour just unscrew the ring, pull the tip off and attach it to another piping bag
also fitted with a coupler. To use that tip with another colour of frosting you can either wash
the piping tip in between different colours or here's a quick tip for speedy cake decorating:
unscrew the tip from the first colour and move it straight onto the next bag of colour without
cleaning it but before you pipe onto the cake, squeeze the frosting out of the bag until you
don't see the old colour coming through anymore and you've just cleaned the tip in two seconds!
I love using couplers because you can switch back and forth between colours as often as you like
instead of piping for example all of the turquoise onto the sides and top of the cake
and then doing all of the coral so couplers give you creative flexibility to pipe whatever you like
whenever you like! If you prepare your piping bags in advance or take a break in the middle of using
them the buttercream at the end of the piping tip will dry out and crust because it's exposed
to air. To avoid that, wrap the piping tips in cling film or saran wrap to keep them airtight
and that will keep the buttercream soft and sticky until you pipe with it.
Disposable piping bags are washable so you can use them again and again and again but eventually
you'll notice holes in them and frosting will ooze out of those holes. No problem - wipe
the frosting off the outside of the piping bag and then cover the holes with tape so that you
can use that piping bag to finish off your cake without dribbling frosting all over your design.
If you run out of frosting while you're piping you can refill the piping bag but you're likely
to trap a pocket of air in between the old frosting and the new frosting. Before you use
the refilled bag, squeeze that last little bit of old frosting out of the bag until you hear a
burp. Let's see that again closely. You're looking for a little explosion of air and you want that to
happen in a bowl not onto the beautiful piping on your cake. You don't have to use piping tips
for piping and I'll show you two alternatives now. Fill a piping bag with no piping tip if the
texture of your piping doesn't matter for example to apply the filling and frosting onto a cake.
Piping it on instead of spreading it is much quicker and you won't pull crumbs off the cake
if you pipe it and then spread and smooth it so your frosting will be beautifully crumb-free.
You can even pipe without a piping tip or a piping bag by using ziploc bags or sandwich
bags instead. Squeeze the frosting down and cut a tiny piece of one corner to pipe through.
These bags are perfect if you want to use lots of colours but don't have lots of piping bags
and if you only want to pipe lines or dots so you don't need the shapes that are cut out of the ends
of piping tips. You can create surprisingly intricate designs by piping with ziploc bags.
Let's talk about leftovers. You'll almost always have leftover frosting in your piping bags or
ziploc bags. You can refrigerate it for two weeks or freeze it for two months before using it on
another cake. Just let it come to room temperature first and then squeeze it into a piping bag
and voila! Reusable for another cake design! I hope these hacks are useful. I break down
hundreds of cake decorating techniques on my cake school so that they're clear and easy to follow,
step by step with close-up video instructions and explanations of what can go wrong and how
to fix it. You can take individual courses or join my ClubPLUS for access to all of my MiniCourses,
MasterCourses and Live Workshops. Click up here in the top of the
screen to visit my cake school or go to www.britishgirlbakes.com Thank you for watching!
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