Wow! Hi there! It’s been a really long year and I haven’t had a chance to write. 2019 brought some major changes to my life and I had zero time to document any of my cookies. I did post some pictures on Instagram, but that’s it. 2020 is now here and I hope to be able to share more on the blog this year.
Silicone piping bags are not exactly pretty cookies, but I good topic to cover. My sister texted me a few weeks back asking if I have had tried silicone piping bags. My sister is a huge advocate of living a plastic-free life. I was immediately intrigued. I purchased the set above of silicone piping bags from Amazon (I paid for them). I’m going to give my pros and cons from a cookie stand point about these piping bags. Also, I’ve been using plastic decorating bottles the entire time I’ve been decorating cookies and I occasionally use tip-less bags.
When I opened the package from Amazon, the first thing I thought was that these are intended to be used for cake decorating.
PROS:
REUSABLE- This was the whole reason I purchased these bags. Less plastic going in landfills and oceans. Less money spent on purchasing tip-less bags.
SIZE- The set of bags that I purchased came with nine bags (three sizes of three bags each). My set came with 12, 14, and 16-inch bags. The variety in size allows for smaller bags to be used for piping consistency and larger bags for flooding. If needed, the larger bags can be cut down to make them smaller. Amazon has numerous bag size configurations. I did find this set of smaller-sized bags.
EASE OF USE- If you have never used a coupler and tip piping bag, you will have to go to YouTube and watch a video on setting your piping bag up. Filling the bags, clipping them closed, and piping with the bags was exactly like tip-less bags. I thought the silicone bag was more comfortable to hold and pipe with. The bags felt sturdy, like they could take a bit more abuse then the thin tip-less bags.
CLEAN UP- This one can be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it. This is were many of the reusable decorating items lose there luster. After decorating cookies for hours, I don’t want to spend more time cleaning piping bags. Yes, it’s more work then just tossing a tip-less bag into the trash. I only had two bags to clean, but it didn’t take more than 10 minutes. First, I removed as much of the old icing as I could. I turned the bags inside out, removed the coupler and ran them under hot water. I let them air dry.
CONS:
COLOR- The bags are blue in color. This makes it difficult to see what color icing is in the bag. I only had two colors so it wasn’t hard to keep straight, but if you have multiple shades or pastel colors, it will be difficult to tell which color is which by just looking. This problem can be solved by numbering the bags and have a key written down that you can refer to, i.e. bag #1 is red, bag #2 is pink.
ADDITIONAL ITEMS- If you primarily use tip-less bags, you most likely don’t have couplers and tips on hand. The set I purchased came with couplers, but the tips were geared toward cake decorating (flower and star tips). Round #1 or 2 tips would be an additional purchase. I didn’t have to make any additional purchases, as I had these items on hand.
STAINING- As you can see from the picture, the bag with hot pink icing is stained. I had a feeling that very pigmented colors would cause this to happen. I tried scrubbing this bag with soap, but the color would not come off. This was disappointing with the blue bag and now stained pink. For the next use, it will be very hard to know what color icing is in the bag. I will have to report back if the bag stains again with use of a different pigmented color like black or blue, or if now that’s it’s stained, it will no longer stain again.
Both piping bags are clean. The one on the left had the hot pink icing and on the right orange icing.
My final thoughts on the silicone piping bags is it’s a good product. It’s not 100% geared towards use for cookie decorating, but you can easily make it work. I’ve always believed in taking care of the earth. Whether you have a cookie business or just decorating for fun. The choices we make in which products we use sends a strong message. Using less plastic is something we all need to do.