Piping Bags

The icing and decorating of cakes is arguably the best bit, when you can finish your bake with perfectly piped messages, swirls, scrolls, shells and more.

Piping bags come in many guises – fabric or coated fabric bags are strong and can be reused time and time again, but need to be washed and dried carefully after each use.

If you already own an assortment of icing nozzles, consider single-use, disposable piping bags instead. The end of the bag can be cut to accommodate any size of nozzle, and of course, there’s no messy cleaning up to do afterwards. Best of all though is a flexible silicone piping bag – you can just turn them inside out and pop them in the dishwasher.

If you’re caught without a piping bag when following a recipe, you could fashion one out of greaseproof paper, but beginners may find it a little slippy. Silicone piping bags are easy to control and plastic piping bags with a non-slip, textured finish will help you get a grip for more controlled icing and decorating.

Piping bags are handy for much more than icing cakes and cupcakes – they help achieve perfect rounds of choux pastry, immaculate meringues, potato croquettes, cream for trifles and even neat peaks of mashed potatoes on pies!