Happy Monday y’all! We spent the weekend in Texas and I have been saying y’all way too much since then 🙂 I’m barely recovering from jet-lag, a 4 am (Boise-time) flight, and coming home to a couple of sick boys. But we can’t ever leave you empty-handed (or is it “empty-posted?) especially on a Monday! So I wanted to share a quick tip with y’all (YES, I said it one more time.) I’ve been doing this lately and it’s been sooo convenient! I love to share a good tip when I find one; this one came from Karen’s Cookies.
There are a million options when you’re using piping bags. You don’t always need to use a coupler, and sometimes you can even just pop your frosting in a ziplock bag and toss it when you’re done. There are re-usable bags, disposable ones, or you can make your own with parchment. No matter which option you choose, when you start working with multiple tips, flavors, or colors of frosting, it can get a little tricky. I have to always think ahead of time, “okay, do I need to change the tip on this bag at any point? Do I need to use this tip on more than one bag? Will I need to wash this bag to use a different color? Etc. etc. This little trick is actually really handy. You can use one bag and several colors of icing and never even have to wash the bag! Check it out. Y’all. 🙂
After your frosting is prepared (this is a new chocolate one from our new cook book!) plop it right on a piece of plastic wrap, like so:
Wrap the plastic around your frosting, kind of like a log
And then take both ends and swing it like you would a jump rope. You know, a tiny little jump rope for someone who is 6 inches tall. The long ends of the plastic wrap with roll up tight like this:
I know. Weird, right? Watch this. Take one end of that frosting-jump-rope and string it right into your piping bag and through the tip. I’ve got a coupler in my bag so I can change tips with the same batch of frosting.
Pull it really tight, and then take a pair of scissors and snip that end off, as close to the coupler as you can get.
That’s it! Pipe away, and make beautiful cupcakes (I’m writing a whole huge tutorial right now about decorating cupcakes, and different frosting techniques, so stay tuned for more info on that!)
But here’s the coolest part. When you’re done- or if you want to change colors or tips, just pull the plastic-wrapped frosting out from the back end again:
There’s a little bit of frosting left in the tip, and all you need to do is remove the tip, or wipe it out. The bag itself is completely clean! You put it away to use again later, or fill it with a different color and be piping away again in a matter of seconds.
I thought that was a great little trick and if you work with frosting a lot, you’ll quickly find how useful it is! Enjoy your Monday, and make sure to eat a cupcake. Words of wisdom: weeks that start out with cupcakes are always better than weeks that don’t. Make sure to check in on Wednesday- I’m going to show you tons of behind-the-scenes fun from our weekend trip to Texas!
Questions & Reviews
Gurl, this is a GREAT idea! You get my de Vinci seal of approval : ) This is as good as my great grandmother’s idea to cut cinnamon rolls apart with thread leaving perfect lil pinwheels in a split second. Thanks; I am converted. lm
This is seriously the best thing ever!! I made a whole mess of cupcakes for a school project – 4 different types for 30+ people = a whole lot of icing and icing headaches – and I wish I had read this post before! I’m going to be making cookies this weekend for a 20+ people pool party and I can’t wait to try this out!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
mind = blown! This is beyond awesome.
This is great! And all those pre-decisions out the window. And I hate washing the bags. This is great in so many ways. Thank you! (repinned on Pinterest)
Thank you so much for this post, this will make my life so much happier.
Just attempted this technique yesterday and I had a few snags. I had a very hard time pulling the plastic wrapped bundle down into place in my piping bag. I used a plastic disposable piping bag and the saran wrap stuck to it. Maybe wouldn’t be so bad using one of the reusable Wilton bags that are made from a different material. Also, I neglected to use a coupler and so the plastic wrap got all in the way of the star tip and it didn’t work. The coupler is key to making this work!
So good to know! The next time I make a decorated shaped cake it will be so much easier. Thanks!
I just used your awesome idea to do an ‘ombre’ frosting! Thanks for the great tip!!!
http://janijo.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-step-ombre-frosting.html
LOVE it!
Brilliant! The mess of piping has kept me from doing much of it…..now I will really pipe it up!!
Can you use this tip with your swirling frosting tip? Instead of several piping bags would it be several frostng logs? So amazing… love this tip!
Probably! I’ve never tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work 🙂
This is sooo cool! Thank you for the idea! 🙂
Brilliant!!!!
OMG..its awesome..I love it. I am soo gonna try doing this.
Wow, this is such an amazing idea. I have just started getting into decorating cakes and have been quite intimidated with it so far. What is your advice to avoid making your cakes and cupcakes look like a sloppy mess?
That is a great idea! What if instead of cutting off the end as close to the coupler as you can, you… Pull the frosting roll thru as you demonstrated and before you get to a section where the frosting meets the plastic wrap, cut it there (which would leave about an inch or so)… then unroll the plastic wrap and fold back over the coupler before screwing on the tip? (The tip would screw on over the plastic wrap.) This would keep the coupler clean with thinner frosting that might ooze back up?
Thanks for the tip! I used it this past week for my daughter’s birthday. I’d even consider using it for only one color since it’s SO much easier to load the frosting into the piping bag. It worked like a charm!
Love this idea!! Can’t wait to try it. I just bought your book at TOFW in Spokane, I love the picture of the cupcakes on the front but can’t find a cupcake recipe in the book. Is the picture just to show an idea or the icing? Would love to try your cupcake recipe. Thx
Hi Sheila! We get asked about those cupcakes a lot! The cupcake itself isn’t in the book, it’s just a plain vanilla cupcake and it’s topped with the whipped buttercream frosting from the book and topped with fresh strawberries 🙂
oh mercy what a great tip! and you bet i pinned it.
Oh WOW!!!!! Great idea! I hate frosting bags because of the mess but this looks so easy!
This is AMAZING!!! I hate even dealing with piping because of the mess. THANKS FOR THE SHARE! Love y’all (from a Texan:)
omg i cant believe no one has ever thought of this or has told me about thtis amazng idea. see i am in the 10th grade and i LOVE to bake but my mother gets mad at me because i like to bake but i dont like the clean up part but now that i know that i could have an almost mess free cake session she will allow me to bake so much more thanks a whole bunch!!!!!! <<<33333
Two weeks ago I managed to bust my piping bag (that I only use once or twice a year anyway). Today was my daughter’s 4th birthday. Wanting to still pipe her cupcakes with a cute tip, I remembered this trick, and just used a snipped Ziploc bag, with plastic wrap stuffed into the tip!
We did that with mashed potatoes when I took culinary classes.
I just used this trick to decorate my two-year-old daughter’s birthday cake. A-MA-ZING!!! That was the quickest cake cleanup EVER. Thank you!
pure genius… like Einstein.
Genius!! And perfect timing too. I piped about 30 buttercream roses this morning. I will definitely try this little trick out tomorrow when I frost and decorate my daughter’s birthday cake. Thanks!!
I want to share my failure with you and your other readers. I got overzealous with this wonderful idea that I put a HUGE dollop of buttercream into the plastic wrap, wrapped it up like instructed and started swinging. The momentum of the buttercream ended up ripping through the plastic wrap, onto me, the counter, and my kitchen curtains. So… lesson here, moderation. Limit the amount of frosting you use and don’t go crazy with the jump rope swinging. Will give this another try today. Wish me luck!
Lol, oh no! Lesson learned 😉
So cool! I hate cleaning the bags to change colors. Thanks for the awesome tip!
Where has this idea been all my life?
That’s amazing. If I could bow down to you I would 😉