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Piping tips, tricks and hacks for cake decorating that's fast, easy and fun! Have I missed anything? Share your favourite piping hacks in the comments!
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0:00
Piping onto cakes adds colour and texture and in this tutorial I'm going to share 15 piping hacks to make piping easier
0:11
Let's start with the basics. How to fit a piping bag with a piping tip
0:15
Drop your tip into the piping bag and push it to the end and then use scissors to score about halfway up the piping tip
0:22
Push the piping tip out of the way, cut along the line you scored and then when you push the tip back down it should sit snugly within the bag
0:30
Before we go any further, let's talk about how to choose a piping tip
0:34
They come in lots of different shapes and sizes and keep in mind the size of your cake and the size of your decorations
0:40
For example, the 1M tip on the left is perfect for a rope border on top of an 8 inch cake
0:46
but the number 199 tip on the right is more suitable for a nest on top of a tiny 4 inch cake
0:53
Another basic but useful hack, how to fill a piping bag without making a mess
0:59
You can spoon frosting straight into a piping bag, but you'll probably get frosting all over the edges of the bag
1:05
and that will get all over your hands when you pipe. Instead, fold the top of the bag over before spooning the butter cream in
1:12
or even better, use a glass and fold the top of the bag over the room of the glass to hold the piping bag open while you fill it
1:20
Unfold the bag, and it will be clean as you hold it to pipe. Grip the bag and push the frosting down to the piping tip
1:27
and then twist the bag to apply pressure to the frosting, which makes it much easier to squeeze through the tip
1:32
so much less strain on your wrist. Don't fill the bag more than three quarters full
1:37
or it will be difficult to grip onto as you pipe. Before you pipe onto a cake
1:44
chill the cake for at least an hour in the fridge to set the frosting on the cake
1:47
and that way you can rest your piping tip right up against the cake without damaging the frosting on the cake And since the frosting on the cake is cold and firm and not soft and sticky anymore
1:59
the frosting your piping won't pick up any of the frosting from the cake
2:03
which would then blend with the colour in the piping bag. Also, frosting is heavy, so when you're doing a lot of piping
2:09
it's a really good idea to have a cold cake, which is firmer and more stable
2:12
and won't droop underneath the weight of the frosting your piping. To pipe swells with two different colors, put your piping tip into a piping bag and fold it over a glass to hold it open
2:22
and then spoon one color of frosting into one half of the bag
2:27
pushing it against that side of the bag, and then spoon another color into the other half
2:32
pushing the colors down with your spatula, and then shake the bag a few times before you twist it
2:37
so that both colors go right down to the piping tip, and that way they'll both come out together when you pipe
2:43
To double check, you can squeeze to pipe a little bit of fronels. into a bowl first until both colours come out at the same time
2:51
To incorporate even more colours into your piping, spread out a piece of plastic wrap like
2:56
Plingfilm or saran wrap and pipe or spread lines of coloured frosting along it
3:01
Use as many colours as you like, and of course the wider and longer the area you cover with these lines
3:07
the more frosting you'll have, so the more swells you'll be able to pipe onto your cake
3:12
Roll it into a log and cut off one end and then push that end down into the piping bag
3:18
And cutting it means that all of the colours will come out together to pay beautiful colourful swells
3:23
or whatever style of piping you like. Couplers are another way to effortlessly create designs with lots of colours or textures or both
3:32
Couplers come in two pieces. Push the bigger piece down to the end of a piping bag
3:37
and then you attach the piping tip over the outside of the piping bag screwing it on with the with the ring that comes with the coupler and that will hold it in place as you pipe Use the piping bag as normal and when you want to use that piping tip with another colour just unscrew the ring pull the tip off
3:54
and attach it to another piping bag also fitted with a coupler to use that tip with another colour of frosting
4:01
You can either wash the piping tip in between different colours, or here's a quick tip for speedy cake decorating
4:06
unscrew the tip from the first colour and move it straight onto the next bag of colour without cleaning it
4:12
but before you pipe onto the cake, squeeze the frosting out of the bag
4:16
until you don't see the old colour coming through anymore, and you've just cleaned the tip in two seconds
4:22
I love using couplers because you can switch back and forth between colours as often as you like
4:27
instead of piping, for example, all of the turquoise onto the sides and top of the cake
4:32
and then doing all of the coral. so couplers give you creative flexibility to pipe whatever you like whenever you like
4:39
If you prepare your piping bags in advance or take a break in the middle of using them
4:44
the buttercream at the end of the piping tip will dry out and crust because it's exposed to air
4:49
To avoid that, wrap the piping tips in cling film or saran wrap to keep them airtight
4:54
and that will keep the buttercream soft and sticky until you pipe with it
4:59
Disposable piping bags are washable so you can use them again and again and again
5:03
but eventually you'll notice holes in them and frosting will ooze out of those holes
5:09
No problem, wipe the frosting off the outside of the piping bag and then cover the holes with tape
5:14
so that you can use that piping bag to finish off your cake without dribbling frosting all over your design
5:20
If you run out of frosting while you're piping, you can refill the piping bag
5:25
but you're likely to trap a pocket of air in between the old frosting and the new frosting
5:30
Before you use the refilled bag squeeze that last cool bit of old frosting out of the bag until you hear a burp Let see that again closely You looking for a little explosion of air and you want that to happen in a bowl not onto the
5:45
beautiful piping on your cake. You don't have to use piping tips for piping, and I'll show you
5:52
two alternatives now. Fill a piping bag with no piping tip if the texture of your piping doesn't matter
5:58
For example, to apply the filling and frosting onto a cake, piping it on instead of spreading it, is
6:04
much quicker and you won't pull crumbs off the cake if you pipe it and then spread and smooth it
6:09
So your frosting will be beautifully crumb-free. You can even pipe without a piping tip or a piping bag by using Ziploc bags or sandwich bags instead
6:19
Squeeze the frosting down and cut a tiny piece of one corner to pipe through
6:24
These bags are perfect if you want to use lots of colours but don't have lots of piping bags
6:29
And if you only want to pipe lines or dots so you don't need the shapes that are cut out
6:34
of the ends of piping tips. You can create surprisingly intricate designs by piping with
6:39
Ziploc bags. Let's talk about leftovers. You'll almost always have leftover frosting in your
6:44
piping bags or Ziploc bags. You can refrigerate it for two weeks or freeze it for two months before
6:50
using it on another cake. Just let it come to room temperature first and then squeeze it into a piping
6:56
bag and voila, reusable for another cake design. I hope these hacks are useful. I break down hundreds of
7:03
cake decorating techniques on my cake school so that they're clear and easy to follow step
7:08
by step with close-up video instructions and explanations of what can go wrong and how to fix it
7:13
You can take individual courses or join my club plus for access to all of my mini courses
7:17
master courses and live workshops. Click up here in the top of the screen to visit my
7:21
cake school or go to british girlbakes.com. Thank you for watching
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