What inspires me most as a pastry chef is the story of the baked good.

The intricate and well thought out dance of taste, texture, aroma, and je ne sais quoi. The appreciation of the thin creative line that was drawn by the chef between the requirements and the endless possibilities that could make that treat so special.  

My favourite part of recipe development is taking the task or goal, and finding the most unique, interesting or unexpected connections between elements that make up that task. For example, we need to launch a new cookie for the spring, and we have an excess of poppyseeds from our bagel production. Finding that perfect treat that is the intersection between all three elements, and then testing testing testing until it is perfection… that’s what inspires me most about pastry.

That is where I am most creative. 

My (slightly stoned) attempt at fixing a 4 tiered wedding cake I made for a family friends wedding that fell over halfway during dinner service.

Toronto, 2022.

But with pastry arts, the visual is just as, if not more important, in the delight of a baked good than the taste. 

Most people do not have a trained tongue to understand the nuances of unique taste and texture. 

I talk about visual presentation in relation to using a piping bag because the piping bag is a pastry chefs best friend when it comes to taking something plain (or even hideous) and turning it into a sight to behold. An easy to control, consistent tool that allows for repetitive decoration to the limits of what the mind can imagine. Be it thin drizzle of white chocolate on a quarter of a pumpkin pie, to a unique rosette on a cupcake, to a piped linzer cookie that looks as consistent as its sibling, to almost real buttercream flowers on a wedding cake. Knowing how to use a piping bag is necessary to expressing your visual creativity.

And quite possibly, this could be why I lacked an appreciation for presentation. Because for years, I could not effectively use a piping bag. I lacked the coordination, skills and patience to get a perfect drizzle, write a perfect “happy birthday”, or make a consistent rosette on a cake. 

HOW TO FILL A PIPING BAG

To fill a piping bag without getting the bag, and your hands, a stick oily mess, you will take the bag and flip half of it inside out. Stick your hand in the hole of the bag and open up the bag as wide as possible. We flip the bag inside out to about the half way point of the bags depth because we are only going to fill our bag halfway. Filling it more than half way is adventurous, and possible, but it makes the job of piping much more tricky. You will need to apply more pressure (thus exhausting your hand more) to get the icing out of the bag in a consistent flow. So, when starting out, less icing is more. Refilling the bag can be a pain, sure, but its worse than having an exhausted hand with limited control over flow. 

Once the bag is open and flipped, you will take your room temperature buttercream and fill the bag up to where the fold is. We use room temperature buttercream because cold buttercream requires you to use more pressure to get a consistent flow. More pressure, more exhaustion, more chances for failure and frustration. 

Once filled, we will reverse the fold over of the bag, and return the bag to its original shape. Try to ensure the sides and edges of the bag do not get covered in icing – this is how greasy sticky hands are formed.

HOW TO PIPE PROPERLY

You should only pipe with one hand, the same hand that is also holding the piping bag twisted shut. You will use the 3 fingers not held in the twist to apply pressure to the top of the bag. This will force the icing out of the opening in a slow, concentrated stream. Practice applying different levels of pressure and moving the bag around to create designs (lines, dots of all sizes, layering dots on top of one another, a spiral that layers on top of itself). 

Practice stopping mid flow, and pulling the bag away. Notice the direction and shape the icing takes with these varying pressures. As icing empties, move your hand down the bag like you would squeeze the resistant remains in a tube of toothpaste.