The Unexpected Office Supply That Makes Cookie Decorating A Breeze

When it comes to decorating cookies, the job can get pretty difficult. From handling icing that's too loose to making icing come out of the pastry bag at the right speed, putting the finishing touches on cookies requires quite a bit of skill. But there's actually a common office supply that is just the ticket to simplifying things. The piece of equipment you need to move from the office and into your kitchen is actually a stash of binder clips.

According to Epicurious, binder clips have become just the thing to use for Edd Kimber, a food writer, cookbook author, and winner of Great British Bake Off. "Parchment doesn't like to sit neatly," he said. Though the clips can be used to keep your parchment paper in place while you spread an even layer of batter on to it, they can also play an important role for your pastry bag too, according to The Kitchn. To make the process of controlling the pressure and even refilling your pastry bag with royal icing, use a binder clip instead of a rubber band to close the top opening while you are piping.

Most people use rubber bands to close the top of pastry bags, but binder clips are so much more useful because they are easier to move. Rubber bands can be hard to deal with when you want to fill your pastry bag with more icing, especially when the sides of the bag start to stick as the icing runs low. By using a binder clip, you can move it down the pastry bag as you need to in order to maintain the same amount of pressure on the top of the icing that you had from the start of decorating. Overall, it should make decorating a lot easier.

To use this easy trick, just fill your piping bag around three-quarters of the way full with your icing. Twist the remaining empty top of the bag so that the bag has enough pressure to motivate the icing to come out of the nozzle and clap the binder clip on. This will keep the icing from oozing out of the top of the pastry bag. When you have used enough icing and the bag isn't as taut as it was, just twist the top of the bag and move the binder clip further toward the nozzle.