Last Minute Pastry Bag (from Recycled Products!)

How to make a Pastry Bag from common things you have at home. Ideal for those last moments when you need one and can't buy one!
By the way, this is my first instructable so be nice! ;-D

Step 1: Getting started!

It's always a problem when you are in the need of something you don't have and there is no way of obtaining it by just buying it, and sundays are those days... I came to live to Finland and appart from not bringing enough winter clothes ;-) I didn't bring any pastry bag! Duh!

So... what to do? Just build one! It's really easy and effective plus you a reusing things you would probably throw away!

What do we need:
1.)_An empty bottle_; One small soft drink, water or whatever bottle with an screwable cap will do!
2.)_A clean plastic bag_; A normal grocery bag will do, just don't use a really thick plastic bag, it's worse for squeezing!
3.) A knife, cutter, scissors, anything like that.

Step 2: French Bottle Revolution!

Then, shouting Vive La Republique! , grab the bottle and behead it as low to the neck as you can.
Note that there will possibly be many pointy edges in the plastic. You should try to make the cut as clean as possible by cutting off with a cutter those parts or just use heat from a stove o lighter to make them blunt. Failing to to it will cause hole into the bag when you are squeezing it and all the content comes out.

Get the cap and with the help of a scissor peel the plastic circular seal that exists in the concave part of it.
Now bore a hole into the cap. I just used a pair of scissors.

Step 3: Making the contour mask

Get the seal you peeled from the cap, draw a pattern as you wish (stars work best!) and cut it off with a cutter knife. If the seal is too thin you can use a thicker piece of plastic like the one covering pringle potatoes.
Finally put back the seal in place.

Step 4: Finishing Off

Now place the neck of the bottle in the bag, preferably in a corner, and screw the cap onto the neck (from the outside!!!). Make a hole into the bag though the cap and tadaa! Ready to use!

Final consideration: You could alway use only a bag with a hole, but I find adding the bottle head helps when decorating pastry.

Comments

[ducttapehamster]

how is that to clean or is it more of a one time uses then throw away thing?

[Fried Calamari]

it seems like more of a one time thing

[yahooo1201]

thats a great idea!!!! thanks so much..

[northernmagnet]

just saying you can also use a gallon freezer bag you know to right but still clever

[jbrecken]

Is that ink food-safe?

[scoochmaroo]

So clever!

[siriradha]

Great idea! Wish you would post a picture of something you decorated with your star cap.

[leviliu]

Cool, especially using the seal as a shape/design template. What if you (i) pulled the corner of the bag through the hole in the neck from the bottom, (ii) cut the corner to make a hole roughly the size of the cap, (iii) fold the rim of the hole over the neck, and (iv) then screw on the cap? Can you avoid some of the sharp edges from the neck, now that the bag sits on the "inside" of the neck? Maybe it's not a big difference, but it's a minor modification.

[soularwave]

wow, this bottle neck is so tough to smooth out. I even tried my jewelry cutters, which go through metal easily and it's still tough.

[TonyRomero]

Yeah... the neck is quite hard to smooth... I would use a dremmel or some tool like that, but at that moment I used sandpaper to grind it.

[soularwave]

I ended up having luck with those scissors that cut pennies (as seen on tv and sold by my drugstore). I was just afraid of fumes from putting plastic over the stove burner. I will use my new pastry bag tomorrow, thank you for posting your instructable!

[soularwave]

could you post a photo of what the end product looks like when it's piped through this star pattern? any other patterns that you recommend?

[ArtifexCrastinus]

I haven't even made one yet, but I think I have a couple ideas. 1) Use a bottle for which you have two identical caps. Use one to squirt through and use the other to save the contents for later. Switching lids might be a problem if the bag isn't well attached to the bottle. In that case, it may be a good idea to add rubber band around the neck or else heat it to fuse the bag to the bottle. 2) Using a Ziploc bag would definitely help in keeping the contents from spilling out as well as storing the stuff for later. 3) If making a large nozzle, I suggest using a medicine bottle. Not only do they have wide openings, they often have those rubber discs in them.

[ArtifexCrastinus]

It turns out that it works well to use just an orange juice neck and lid. The rubber seal in a medicine bottle cap is great for making nozzles. The actual medicine bottle lid is too thick to cut through.

[mcadwell]

Very good idea. I like it better than what I used: an empty mustard bottle (cleaned of course!)

[trebuchet03]

That's a lot better than my "snip the corner off a plastic food bag" method :P Espeically since you can make custom dies :)

[TonyRomero]

Thanks canida... you're my first commenter!!! Forever in my heart! Actually I was doing meringue... I took a photo but it actually came like...too white? and my flatmates just ate them all!

[canida]

That's pretty sweet! I wasn't expecting the use of the seal- this should work quite well. Do you have examples of cakes decorated with your homemade bag?