How to Fill a Pastry Bag

Ever tried to fill a pastry bag without help? Trying to scoop the frosting or peanut butter out of the container while holding a half full bag can be a messy and frustrating job.

Here is a method that makes filling a pastry bag ten zillion times easier. It seems like a no-brainer, but I’m surprised at how many people don’t know this little trick.

This week I shared a recipe for Chocolate covered peanut butter sandwiches. One of the steps is to spread or pipe peanut butter onto the graham crackers. I prefer to pipe. I think it is easier, gives a more consistent shape and is less messy.

Everybody should own at least one pastry bag. They come in handy quite often.

Here we go.

Start with your pastry bag, fitted with whatever tip or coupler and tip you want (Since I wasn’t going to change tips for this purpose, I just put the tip inside.) Then the super secret tool is a glass. Yep, simple as that.

Place the tip of the bag in the bottom of the cup.

Next fold the top of the bag over the rim of the cup.

The cup holds the floppy bag upright. Now you can use both your hands to scoop the peanut butter or frosting or whatever into your spoon or spatula. And the rim of the glass gives you something to scrape the spatula against to get the peanut butter into the bag.

After you have forced as much frosting or peanut butter as you need into the bag, carefully pull up the top edge of the bag, rolling the pastry bag up . Try to keep the contents from touching the edge of the bag. That will make a mess.

And presto, the cup underneath is a different cup! You didn’t know you were actually performing a magic trick. I had to switch the cups because my original choice had too wide of a rim. Choose your cup more carefully.