Flour Girl - 27 February 2013 01:03 AM

Wow! That is very cool. I had no idea how those flowers were made. Thank you for all this great information. I havea a llot of studying and video watching to do. I appreciate your help.

I think it’s really cool how flowers are piped, too! I’ll just warn you now, though, that watching these videos can be quite addictive. I have literally spent hours watching them. I am someone who learns much better visually compared to just reading instructions, so I have found myself hypnotized by the videos posted there. They’re a great resource for learning, but they can be quite distracting, too. Anyway, I’m glad you liked them and I hope they help you as much as they have me. Good luck and have fun with this!

- MP

Monsieur Pâtisserie - 02 March 2013 05:41 PM

Flour Girl - 27 February 2013 01:03 AM

Wow! That is very cool. I had no idea how those flowers were made. Thank you for all this great information. I havea a llot of studying and video watching to do. I appreciate your help.

I think it’s really cool how flowers are piped, too! I’ll just warn you now, though, that watching these videos can be quite addictive. I have literally spent hours watching them. I am someone who learns much better visually compared to just reading instructions, so I have found myself hypnotized by the videos posted there. They’re a great resource for learning, but they can be quite distracting, too. Anyway, I’m glad you liked them and I hope they help you as much as they have me. Good luck and have fun with this!

- MP

Thank you Monsieur! I am finding I am watching more and more. I can see this becoming addictive, for sure.  I, too, learn better from watching. 

I have wilton tips and they work fine.  But I did end up buying a set of polycarbonate tips to pipe chocolate or ganache.  The metal tips seem to cool down the ganache/chocolate so that it is too hard to pipe.  I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem.

Thanks Liza. I’ll probably have to get a few of those tips too. I bought the student set of 14 tips from Ateco and a 20 piece set of the large tips. I haven’t tried to use them yet.  I don’t even know which frostings can be piped. Can Roses’s Dreamy Creamy frosting be piped?

I think that all of Rose’s non-glaze frostings can be piped, but as they are made with natural ingredients and her first priority is taste and soft, creamy mouthfeel, temperature becomes very important to keeping them firm enough to pipe.  Some people have trouble with the cream cheese frosting, but if it is kept a tad cool (consider wearing gloves) it works just fine.

Thanks Julie. I guess I am going to need some polycarbonate tips sooner than I thought.

Julie - 10 March 2013 10:04 AM

I think that all of Rose’s non-glaze frostings can be piped, but as they are made with natural ingredients and her first priority is taste and soft, creamy mouthfeel, temperature becomes very important to keeping them firm enough to pipe.  Some people have trouble with the cream cheese frosting, but if it is kept a tad cool (consider wearing gloves) it works just fine.

Thank you about the frosting. Rose’s Dreamy Creamy is the only frosting we like. I guess I will have to start making some others. Are the gloves needed to handle the pastry bag? Does the material the tips is made of have a bearing on the temperature of the batter?

I think I am a little confused about the tips.

What I want to do with tips is fill the wells of cupcake pans or neatly pipe in between layers. Maybe swirl frosting on a cupcake or the border of a cake but nothing more elaborate.  Do I really need the polycarbonate tips for that purpose?

With the small amount of piping that I do, I haven’t noticed metal tips changing the temperature of the frosting during piping.  It would make sense that metal would change temps more quickly than plastic, I just haven’t noticed it- perhaps my house is generally a temperature that works for piping.

For your needs, it seems like two or three tips (one large plain, one large star and perhaps a medium star or french tip) are all you would need, and I’m sure metal would do just fine.  No one really needs the polycarbonate tips, I just like the durability and the way they form a more 3D shape than the metal tips. 

Whatever you choose, it will make beautiful cakes and speed up tasks like frosting cupcakes- have fun!:)

Thank you so much! That is a big help to me. I’ll return the tips I bought and downsize. Thank you!