1,509 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

The proper use of a pastry bag

Ever used a pastry bag? Handy, isn't it, but unfortunately not very easy to fill. In fact, to be comfortable with this tool, you'd need 3 or 4 arms, which isn't very common.

Does that mean it's a goner? No, of course not. Here are 2 or 3 tips to help you get comfortable with it.

6,477 4.7/5 (19 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Pastry Pastry bag Pastry tip Utensil Method

Last modified on: December 5^th 2020

For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend

The proper use of a pastry bag

What is a pastry bag?

poche avec douilles

Quite simply, it's a kind of large cone-shaped plastic bag (the pouch), in the bottom of which we place an outlet, usually made of very hard plastic, polycarbonate (the socket).

The bag is filled with the chosen preparation - cream, paste, mousse, etc. - then closed, and the contents squeezed out through the nozzle.

This gives you complete control over the output (flow) and shape of the cream/paste, thanks to the nozzle.

It's the favorite, indispensable tool of pastry chefs, who use it time and time again. In fact, they use the term "pocher", which in this context doesn't mean cooking, but dressing with a pastry bag.

In fact, bakers love to gently mock pastry chefs by saying that they "can't do anything without a pastry bag".

Useful at home?

Oh yes, indispensable even for an incredible number of preparations of all kinds. It's virtually impossible, for example, to make anything aesthetically pleasing in choux pastry without "poaching".

Difficult?

It's hardly complicated in principle, you just press on the bag and the mixture comes out, after which it's much harder to control the effort and precision of the gesture, but that comes with time.
Poaching regular macaroons, for example, is not at all easy, especially at first.

The first difficulty is filling the pouch, which sounds a bit odd when you say it like that, but if you're alone in the kitchen, it can quickly become a real pain: you have to spread the pouch, pour in the cream (sometimes in several stages), push it to the bottom, scrape out the rest, be careful that what's in the pouch starts to come out through the nozzle when the filling isn't finished, close the pouch, avoid air bubbles and leaks, and that's where the 3 or 4 arms I mentioned almost come into their own...

How do you do it?

poche pincée 1) If your preparation is rather liquid, such as mousse, cream, etc., pinch the tip of the bag with a frozen food clip, a large clothespin or even a rubber band to prevent leakage during filling.

poche dans un litre gradué 2) Place the empty, pinched pouch in a container with a high rim (like a graduated liter), spread the edges apart and place in front of you.

poche remplie 3) Slowly pour the mixture into the bag, then scrape it all down with a maryse (no spillage).

poche prete 4) Close the pouch by twisting the plastic (to avoid air bubbles) and remove it from the high-sided container. You can leave it to stand for a while, so your preparation is protected from the air.

pochage 5) When you're ready to poach, place the pouch with the tip upwards, remove the tongs, turn downwards and poach!

That's it, you know it all, but I'd like to finish by pointing out that, at first, it can be a bit disastrous, as you have very little control over the flow of the pouch and the shaping, but don't lose hope, you'll see with time and experience, it'll come...

Tosum up: to fill a pouch properly, pinch the end if the preparation is rather liquid, then fill with the pouch placed in a high-sided container, not held in the hand.

Lasts posts

Add a bay leaf

Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31^th 20258155

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 2025927 13

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13^th 20251,2415

Always secure your cutting board

When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1^st 20251,2815

Cherry clafoutis, with or without pits?

When it comes to cherry clafoutis recipes, there's often a camp of those who argue that you absolutely have to leave the stones in because it tastes better, and the other camp (myself included) who prefer cherries without stones, which makes a much more pleasant clafoutis to eat. But is it true...
June 29^th 20251,1305

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Foie gras without force-feeding: it can be done

I adore foie gras... I willingly admit it, I adore foie gras: the texture, the taste, the festive aspect – I enjoy all of it. I really love eating it, preparing it and, most of all, sharing what I have made with my family over Christmas and New Year. ...but then I begin to have doubts Of...
December 15^th 201447 K4.4

Cleaning endives

If you buy your endives elsewhere than in supermarkets, and in this case the best is of course from a market gardener, he or she is the one who planted and harvested them, in this case you will have endives full of earth or sand, depending on where they were grown, which is normal and reassuring, we...
March 24^th 202023 K4.6

Sorrel and its cooking

Do you like sorrel? This delicious plant with its beautiful bright green leaves, whose subtle acidity goes very well with many other things, including in particular cream, to form with salmon the emblematic dish of the 70's, "Salmon with sorrel" on which was built the beginning of the fame of the...
March 19^th 20229,3675

The gelling agent in a cream

If you start making a Bavarian cream for example, or any other that contains a gelling agent such as gelatin or agar-agar, you will sooner or later be confronted with the problem: How to properly incorporate this gelling agent into my cream? (and we will focus on gelatin).
June 18^th 202212 K4.9

In Praise of the Vegetable Mill

When a recipe or preparation calls for something solid to be pureed, as in a soup for example, the natural reflex is to take out the blender and plunge it into the saucepan. This works very well in most cases, but there are times when you'd like to puree something and at the same time remove the...
July 12^th 20238,3375