Russian Piping Tips

      Recently, I became interested in Russian piping tips and decided to try them out. There are three types- nozzles, balls, and the basic tip. The nozzle is the most well-known, and it is often referred to as just a 'russian piping tip'.

     Then there's the ball tip- less common, and, yes, it uses up a lot of frosting. (;

     Finally, there's the last one- the pointed tip.

     There is a great variety of each one, and, although they can be really hard to master, the effect is really stunning. For starters, you're going to need a REALLY STIFF buttercream- and I mean STIFF. This will help the piped frosting keep its shape, and will also . Make sure that you don't keep your hands around the piping bag, that will make the frosting less stiff. For the nozzle tip, you start a little ways straight up from the cupcake (or whatever it is that you are frosting) and squeeze gently until the frosting touches the surface. Still squeezing very lightly, pull up slowly. Finish. You can add a little leaf off to one side- it works best if the leaf is leaning against the piped flower.

     We did not try the other two tips this time (we had enough on our hands already), but here are some pictures from Amazon.

     This is the set we got- it is good quality and comes in a pretty little box.

     Here are some of our results- as you can see, they are not yet quite professional, but some of them were piped by an 8-year-old. :)

     The above picture is a shot of when our coupler slid out of the bag while piping. I suppose that this happened because we cut the hole too large? This happened two times before we decided to stop using the coupler. That made it harder to change tips, but we managed.

     All in all, however, we really enjoyed the experience and are definitely trying these again. Let us know in the comments below: Have you ever tried this or anything like this? If so, do you have any tips?