Making a Piping Bag with Greaseproof Paper

Making and baking and decorating and filling! In common these jobs all use, at some stage, 

a Piping Bag!

These useful catering bags come in all shapes and sizes and are made from a variety of materials. There is a massive selection of nozzels available to buy depending on the type of job you're doing. They are used for cake decorating, making choux eclairs or swans etc, piping potato dishes, making biscuits and hundreds of other uses.

There are times when a small pointed piping bag is required for a simple wee job like writing a name on a birthday cake or such and you are only going to use a little bit of cream or icing.

That is when you need to be able to fold together a quick little Greaseproof-Paper Piping Bag.

Well... here is how you do just that!

Fold a sheet of greaseproof paper corner to corner. It doesn't matter if it's a square or rectangle piece to start with as long as you fold it corner to corner, giving you a long fold in the centre

Keep the fold smooth and straight as you cut it with a sharp knife

The general stating position is to point the right-angled corner to your elbow, letting the smallest corner drop

Catch this bottom corner and fold it around your hand

Do not let go of the inside corner and complete the wrap around to look like this

Moving your two hands, slide the two corners gently up and down to tighten and sharpen the point of the cone  

Don't worry if it doesn't seem to be working, first time, as this part will take a little practice!

When you have a sharp point on the piping bag pinch the two top ends of the paper cone together and hold them tight - nearly there!

Fold the ends of the cone back on themselves, to tie the ends of the bag together and stop it from falling apart

It is now ready for use. It's a good idea to make a few of these in advance - they will sit inside each other for storage and you can keep them ready in a little plastic tub for easy access. Like many things in life....practice makes perfect on this one!

Fill the piping bag with your cream or icing and snip off the point to the desired piping size. Use a new bag if you need to. Don't try to re-fill the first one,  it doesn't work!

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zack