Frosting, Piping Bags And Nozzles: A Baker's Guide

Most bakers wait till their cakes, cupcakes and pastries cool down to that ideal temperature to tackle the most exciting part of baking—frosting!

As fun as frosting can be, it is also the most challenging feat. When people enter a bakery, they’ll buy an item with two things in mind: the flavor and the appearance, with the latter often taking priority over the former.

In short, your frosting decides your dessert’s first impression. And any frosting is only as good as the ingredients and tools used to make it!

Prep Your Table

Before you decide on how to twirl and twist your piping bag, make sure you have all your tools in place. Essentially, these are things that make up an arsenal for basic piping:

• Pastry piping bags (disposable or reusable), plus plastic couplers
• An assortment of piping tips
• Straight and offset spatulas
• Rotating cake stand
• Food colorings

Playing With Colors

While you can use regular food colorings for whipped cream frosting, buttercreams are a tad trickier to work with. Gel food colorings are ideal for buttercream frosting as these don’t dilute the mixture.

Tip: Always start out with the minimal amount of coloring. You can always add more food color in your frosting to make it darker/more vibrant, but once the color is there, and you don’t have any extra plain frosting, you can’t take the color back.

The Perfect Base

Every frosting job starts with a flawless base.

Lightly chill to cake/cupcake/pastry before you start frosting. Place it on a flat surface, preferably a rotating one. Smooth over a layer of chilled frosting over the dessert. If you are frosting cakes, make sure you don’t leave any part of the crumb visible. A rotating cake stand will enable you to do just that without effort.

Tip: A cake scraper comes in handy when you want to get a flawless frosting base, especially if you’re piping designs on part of the cake while leaving the rest smooth.

On To the Piping Step 1

Fit the piping nozzle into the pastry bag. Make sure that your nozzles are clean and sanitized. If you are not sure about the size of the hole you need to snip off for fitting the nozzle, start small. Disposable piping bags are pretty cheap, but it’s always wise prevent wastage. Make sure your nozzle is fitted in snugly.

Step 2

Fill the bag. Use a glass as your support when you spoon in the frosting. Do not fill past half the bag’s height; it makes handling harder. Gather and twist the top to shut off the bag, and squeeze it to let the air out.

Step 3

Test your design on a clean plastic sheet or tray before you start frosting on the cake. This will not only help you test your grip but also give you some practice before you start working on your base.

Step 4

Pipe out your designs in segments. Make use of the rotating stand as much as possible to gain a clear line of sight to the area you are frosting.

Looks like you’ve got your frosting basics down. Start off with premium quality cake supplies; online chocolate gifts, frozen foods and baking supplies distributor Divine Specialties offers various kinds of chocolates, food coloring, stabilizers and other ingredients for frosting at wholesale rates for professional bakers.

Happy baking!

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