I’m on my yearly marathon of holiday baking, and my decorating skills are not improving. I’m trying to use bags and various tips to pipe icing onto my lovely cookies and cakes, and the stupid bags keep leaking all over my left hand (which I use to guide the tip, as I squeeze the bag with my right).
I bought disposable bags (Wilton, if it matters), and I have a few sets of tips. I put the cone-shaped-thing in the bag, cut off the end of the bag at ¼” like it said, and then put on the decorating tip and the screw-on thing that holds the tip to the cone-shaped thing. Then I start piping, and the icing squooshes out between the cone-shaped thing and the bag, all over my hand. I’ve tried various icings, with the same results, so I assume it’s my technique at fault.
Not trying to be obnoxious, but are you putting the components together in the correct way? I’m assuming you’re using those white plastic tip adapters, a large part and a round circular screwtop. The large part goes inside the bag, the tip lays on the outside on the cone and the screwtop should screw onto the big piece, screwing around the tip and the bag itself. This should be a pretty tight seal. If there are any spaces for icing to get through, you might be cutting the bag too much.
It could also be that your icing is a little too thick to flow through the tip properly. That would make it so when you squeeze the bag it is easier for the icing to burst through the side rather than the little hole at the end.
I’m also wondering if you’re catching the bag in the threads of the coupler - you should be screwing on that last part over both the tip and the bag. If the bag isn’t in those threads, that would cause leaks, certainly. And make sure that puppy’s screwed on tight.
Here is a great website for baking, and about a quarter of the way down the page there is a nice, exploded-view diagram of how all the parts go together.
I wondered if I was, but that’s how I’ve been doing it. I’ll try snipping less of the bag next time.
And good idea, Susie Derkins, that occurred to me after I messed up the last cake, so I’ll try a thinner icing.
Thanks all, and any ideas to make this easier for a novice are appreciated. My baked goods taste wonderful, but they look like a 2-year-old decorated them.
I have had that problem with Wilton disposables, but not consistently. I think their plastic pieces are not that great, and sometimes you get one that grabs a really good seal, and sometimes not.
What I have done to work around this is to put the plastic parts entirely aside. Then, I snip the end of the bag and drop the metal tip inside. After I get the metal tip poking out of the end of the bag, I use … scotch tape to seal it. I wish I could say I use some special organic tape, but no, it’s regular scotch tape. It doesn’t seem to come into contact with any icing that gets on your cookies.
The downside of this is that you can’t change tips on the bag once you get started, so I do up one bag each of the various colors I need. The tips are ultra-cheap and you can buy them individually at baking supply stores.
