DIY Life

Have you ever run into a situation where you've needed a pastry bag to pipe over-sweetened icing onto a cake, fill deviled eggs, or meter out dough for any number of deep-fried goodies? Pastry bags are not too expensive, but when you don't have one and time is running out to decorate that delectable cake you've just baked before your guests arrive, what do you do? Everyone say it together now, "do-it-yourself!"






Materials:
1 zippered plastic freezer bag
1 batch of fresh made icing, batter, deviled egg, goop, or other filling
1 rubber band (optional)

Tools:
scissors

Time:
A few minutes

Step 1: Fill the freezer bag with your filling. Then grip the bag with one hand and coax all the filling down into one of the corners of the bag.

Step 2: Twist the bag just above where the filling stops to cut off the filling's escape out the back exit. If you have a rubber band, you can put it on the bag around the twist, but this isn't necessary, it just helps hold it all in.

Step 3: Cut the very tip of the bag off, but be sure to cut far enough to get a good sized hole for whatever filling you are using. Try to cut it so you have a hole about the size of your pinky finger in most cases. Obviously, you can cut it smaller (aka closer to the corner of the bag), especially if you want to do letter work on a birthday cake, or larger (further away from the corner of the bag) if you need pipe out thicker batter like churros mix for example.

Step 4: Squeeze the bag with both hands to get a feel for how things are flowing, then squeeze the stuffin' out of that bag onto your won-ton wrappers, into your deviled eggs, or onto your cake.

Using this method, you can even wash out the zippered freezer bag if you like, to save it for next time Then you won't have to buy a pastry bag or run to the store to be able to finish that ever-so-important pastry. Fair warning: these bags tend to make great won-ton filling, churros, icing, deviled egg filling, so they may not be South-Beach Diet compatible. Go ahead and make one anyway, let your imagination run wild.