If you want to decorate sweet treats like cakes and pastries, you need a good piping bag. The right piping bags and tips will allow you to create gorgeous decorations including beautiful flowers made out of frosting. But wait, there’s more! Piping bags come in handy for more than just baked goods. You can also use them for piping mashed potatoes, perfectly poured pancakes, dough, filling pasta shells, piping butter, or filling savoury appetisers. The sky’s the limit with the right kind of piping bag. 

A piping bag is a hand-held triangular-shaped bag made from pliable and food safe materials. It is used to pipe ingredients like icing or potatoes by pressing them through a narrow opening at one end, fitted with or without a piping tip. 

You can attach pastry or decorating tips to the end of the bag. Tips come in a variety of shapes and sizes including round tips, star tips, petal tips and basket-weave tips just to name a few. 

There are different types of piping bags to choose from. 

Canvas piping bags are reusable piping bags that are heavier and more pliable than disposable bags. These are great for working with stiff dough, purees, and warm ingredients. These bags can stain over time and take longer to dry. 



Disposable plastic piping bags are the most popular and versatile. You simply cut the tip off with scissors to use as is or you can fit it with any type of piping tip you desire. These are the easiest to clean up because they are single use and disposable. 

Try these tips for choosing the perfect pastry bag:

Pick your bag material
When you only occasionally do piping, it’s OK to use what you have on hand, such as a gallon-sized plastic bag. Just fill it with frosting, cut a small hole in one corner and frost away. The trouble with this, however, is that you don’t have a lot of control like you would with a proper tip. These are idea for chefs who consistently use them because they hold their shape and can be washed and used repeatedly. There are also disposable plastic pastry bags that can be used with your regular tips and tossed in the trash when you’re done. The canvas versions are more environmentally friendly, but they do involve more clean-up.

Use the right size
If you are frosting a large cake and need a lot of icing, use a large pastry bag. The Better Homes and Gardens test kitchen typically uses 12- or 18-inch bags. These allow for you to continually ice (such as in a circle, layering frosting onto a big cake) without having to stop and switch bags or refill. For smaller jobs, like lettering or minute details, go for a small bag like a 6-incher. This will make it easier for you to maneuver the bag while frosting.

Consider tip varieties
Many of the beautiful, textured designs that can be seen on cakes are made with piping bags that have special tips. A round hole can be used to make incredible designs, but some tip varieties add interesting texture automatically, like ones with indents to look like a star or snowflake or with a thin slit. These also come in various sizes to fit the bag you’re using and to change the size of the design that comes out in the frosting. It’s fun to experiment and try these out. We recommend using a sheet of wax paper to test each bag and tip before using them. This way you know for sure you will be pleased with the design and amount of frosting that is coming out onto your cake or other baked item. If you are working on a masterpiece cake or design that requires the use of several tip shapes, consider using a coupler. This little device is inserted into the pastry bag and serves as a sort of socket for the tip, which is twisted on. When you need to change shapes, just unscrew the tip and switch to the one you need.
 
Some other tips and tricks for using piping bags are

• Always use large piping tips for fillings, batter, dough, meringue, and more.
• You can use a toothpick to help loosen the lump that blocks the tip of your piping bags. To avoid this, always make sure to sift the confectioner sugar before mixing.
• Do not overfill your bag. ½ cup of icing at a time is advisable. Wilton decorating bags have a fill line feature to guide your measuring.
• Fill two decorating bags with two colours, separately. The end of each bag should be cut to half an inch and drop into a larger piping bag (16 in.); 1M or 2A will do.

If you are looking for quality piping bags, you can choose from different brands but Amico is one of the best that you must definitely try out.