apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I think this would be great for working with royal icing that's flowable...like for cookies, but for thick buttercream for cake decorating, probably not.

Do the ridges in the short bottles fill up with frosting? 'Cause that would be a bear to clean out.

Control or not, those look IMPOSSIBLE to clean....

Kuhn Rikon has some cleverly designed products but don't seem to work very well once applied. Just my two cents.

This kit would have been perfect for my nine-year-old cousin's "Decorate-Your-Own-Cupcake" birthday party last year. We had to keep reminding all the girls to keep the pastry bags rolled up and squeeze from the back.

These bottles would have made a lot less mess!

oooh - me likey! I wonder if they ship to Canada?

I am glad that I am not the only only who looked at this and thought that it would be absolutely impossible to clean.

I like the concept. I'm not sure how well it would work in practice. What I do like is the closed end. No matter how hard I try, or how much I twist the back of the bag, I always stop paying attention to what I'm doing and somehow always end up with frosting all over the back of my pastry bag and all over my hands. I admit it. I'm a frosting klutz.

Like the others said - much as they look handy and easy to use, I wouldn't buy them because you'd never be able to get them clean. Yikes!

agree with all the others - these would be a pain to clean - and probably a pain to fill with any icing that's not pourable.

To keep filled pastry bags/plastic bags filled with frosting closed when using them, I twist and secure with either a twist tie or rubber band. Keeps the frosting in and the air out if dehydration is a concern.

The accordian seams would be impossible to clean.

I own this: yes, the accordion seams are completely impossible to clean. I soaked the bottle and tried getting my fingers down in there and it STILL didn't work.

Also, the plastic that the bottles are made out of is so flexible that the top ended up popping off while I was squeezing the icing out and it effed up one of my cupcakes. They also don't hold very much at once, so you have to refill over and over.

That said, if you keep these around for small projects and designate one bottle for sweet and one for savory, it's a handy little kit to have around. Certainly easier to use than a pastry bag (despite the lid popping off every so often).

Yeah, they're probably annoying as heck to wash, but might be really good for kid decorating parties when bags might be a potential disaster.

Might be better just to buy some soft plastic ketchup bottles and trim the tips, though, if they explode like Wiglet says. Kids often have trouble with the concept of "squeeze lightly..."

If I had a nine-year-old I might consider something like this. Maybe it's just because I worked in a bread store and had to make HUNDREDS of 'Hot Cross Buns' at Easter two years in a row. But I don't get why so many people have an aversion pastry bags. Go slow and steady, I tend to keep my back hand steady and try to twist the bag from the front. That way I never have to let the end go and risk the whole thing coming untwisted again. A rubber band works well too but is a pain to redo every third tray of buns.

When I was a kid, Cool Whip came in containers like these. I don't know about their functionality as decorating tools, but they make really fun bath toys.

I saw something like that on QVC and thought it was really cool! I also work at Sur La Table part time, so would get a discount...but I'm feeling a bit discouraged after reading all the comments about the clean up :(

oh my word, the thought of having to clean those...

i'll stick by my decorating standby... a ziploc bag with the corner cut off.

as a mom of 3 girls aged 7 and under, you can imagine all the baking we do. and decorating. over the years i've cobbled together this same 'kit' on my own. it is much easier for small hands to control small bottles than icing bags and all of the icing is contained; and frankly, i've used them for fine detail work. it is, however, a trade off....not the cleanup, but getting the frosting IN is a bear (unless you're flooding). clean up isn't too bad, just lots of shaking.