How to Work with a Pastry Bag

Examples of what you can use them for:

• Decorating any cake, pie, cookie, or pastry
• Evenly distributing pastry cream (for example, between each cake layer)
• Piping out mashed potatoes or appetizers (for example pâté) to reach a better visual effect
• Filling croissants or turnovers

Types of pastry tips:

• Most common pastry tips for decorating:
  • Round plain tip
  • Open star tip
  • Closed star tip
• Other types of tips:
  • Additional decorating tips
  • Pastry tips for specific shapes (for example, grass tip, leaf tip, rose tip, swirl tip, etc.)
  • Bismark tip (great for piping filling into a pastry of any kind since the Bismark tip is long and thin, it is easy to penetrate the pastry with it) .

Disposable or Reusable Pastry Bag?

A reusable pastry bag is more ecological and in the long run, can be slightly more cost effective. The disadvantage of a reusable pastry bag is that once you cut the opening the size is determined, and there is no way back (the opening can only be made larger).

Another problem of a reusable pastry bag is that it needs to be cleaned. Disposable bags save time since they don’t have to be cleaned and you don’t have to worry about the precut opening. They are still fairly inexpensive and a whole roll of them goes a long way in any household. Performance wise there is no major difference, so choose the one that sounds best to you.

Do I Need a Pastry Tip for a Pastry Bag?

Technically you don’t have to use tips with some kinds of applications. I often skip using a plain, round pastry tip since you can reach similar results with just a pastry bag cut with scissors.

Coupler or No Coupler?

A coupler is an easy way to connect a pastry bag with a pastry tip. It consists of two parts: the body and nut. The body slides onto the pastry bag and then with a scissors, cut off the tip of the pastry bag around the bottom part of the coupler’s body.

The nut is then used to tighten the pastry tip onto the pastry bag with the coupler body. A great advantage of using a coupler is the ability to change pastry tips after the bag is filled. Some bakers don’t use couplers and slide the pastry tip directly into the pastry bag.

Then, using a scissors, cut away the pastry bag tip right above the pastry tip pattern. This is a great way to save the time that you would spend with cleaning a coupler. The disadvantage is that you can’t change the pastry tip when the pastry bag is filled (for example, for different styles of decorating on one cake).

How to Fill a Pastry Bag?

Some people find filling a pastry bag fairly irritating, but it doesn’t have to be with the right approach.

1. First, clip the bottom of the bag, right above the pastry tip/coupler using a sealing clip (to make sure that filling does not run out during filling).
2. Then, place the pastry bag into a large glass and pull about ½ of the pastry bag over the glass. This makes the pastry bag stable and easy to fill.
3. Using a large spoonula (a spatula with the expended ability to scoop) fill the pastry bag to the level of the top of the glass.
4. Then, carefully pull the pastry bag out from the glass and take the pastry bag in your hand (holding the filled part). From this point on, the pastry bag holds its shape well and is easy to fill up even more (while slowly pulling the sides up). Fill the pastry bag to at most ¾ of its capacity.
5. When filled, carefully twist the top. Start as close to the filling as possible and move up in the same direction in order to minimize the air inside.
6. Remove the sealing clip and you are ready to pipe. If you need to use a filled pastry bag later or the next day, use another sealing clip to seal the top (twisted part). This way your pastry bag will always be ready to be used but the filling will not dry out or run out.