We cannot live without a SQUEEZE BOTTLE. Why I hear you ask? Well it’s because this is the only tool we currently use for piping our icing onto our cookies.
When it comes to cookie decorating with royal icing there is a few different choices on what you can use to transfer icing onto our cookie. Traditionally you might have used those material icing bags.. in our modern era there is disposable icing bags also available for your use. We haven’t yet ventured to icing bags just yet but this will be something we will look into in the near future as we’ve found that certain techniques such as creating ribbon flowers, drop flower, fine lines that require a No.1 nozzle will be much easier on the hands if we used an icing bag instead. That being said, to date the squeeze bottle is our bread and butter.
Here is a list of pros & cons for the squeeze bottle:
Pros:
Re-usable
The tops of these bottles allow you to change different nozzle sizes easily
Less messy to store when you’re not using it as it stands upright on its own
Probably cheaper in the long run compared to disposable bags ( and possibly better for the environment since we are not throwing away as much plastic but kind of counter this with a bit more water usage from washing them, you be the judge)
Easier to hold in our hand (especially the mini bottles)
Cons:
Very thick icing is very hard to squeeze out which make certain techniques hard
You have to clean them each time
Hard to find in Australia
Now if you want your own squeeze bottles to start decorating they are sometimes available at your local House or Matchbox, especially during the festive season.
They come with their own large nozzle (which we use for flooding) and a lid to keep the icing from drying out. The opening of these bottles are great because they are fairly large, which makes it easy for us to get the icing in by just pouring it in and therefore it’s also easier to get the icing out and clean it. The downfall however to these bottles are that they are tougher to squeeze so that the hands can start hurting if you are using it for detail work and have thick icing in them. So we tend to use these for flooding
Now if you can’t find them in a store then online is another option, there are always squeeze bottles available on ebay or online shops. Finding squeeze bottles in Australian online shops have proved to be a bit difficult but some are available at Sweet Themes. They have the 8-oz squeeze bottle with a lid which we find best for flooding as they come with a fixed nozzle (Picture below) and also easy to fill and clean.
Alternatively if you are not in a rush for your squeeze bottles (and the Aussie dollar stays strong) buying online from US stores are a very good option. Our favourite resource for anything cookie related is Karen’s Cookies. Our favourite squeeze bottles to buy from Karen’s cookies are the 2oz Squeeze bottles. We have at least 8 of them and seem to use them all the time. They are great for when we want to do outlining and detailing on our cookies because you only require a small portion of icing. Also they are soft enough to squeeze and easy to clean. These bottles also have the interchangeable tops so you can use any nozzle size on it.
Hopefully this has been helpful for your own cookie decorating adventures.
We have done a bit of searching and found that you can get these bottles on Amazon for good prices.