Piping Gel Has Various Uses 
When Decorating Cakes and Cookies

Clear piping gel can be tinted with paste or liquid food colors or you can purchased pre-colored piping gel. Piping Gel is great for writing messages on cakes, cookies and candies. But I wouldn’t recommend using it by itself for borders, etc. - for that it is best to incorporate it with frosting. Below are some suggestions in how to use piping gel:

Chocolate Piping Gel: You can use either white or dark chocolate. Melt 1 part chocolate in a double boiler and then cool to room temperature. Add melted chocolate to piping gel. You can use it as “stained glass lead” on a cookie design or for writing the message.

Icing Borders, Leaves and Vines: Take an icing spatula and stripe the inside of your decorating bag with piping gel and then add your frosting. If you just want to give it sheen then use clear piping gel. If you want to have actual stripes of gel then use colored gel (either tint it yourself with paste or liquid food color or use pre-made decorative gel). For example perhaps for a Fourth of July cookie,  you may want to stripe your decorating bag with red and blue gel and then add white frosting and you’ll have a red, white and blue effect. Or perhaps you want to add some dimensions to your leaves and vines - you can stripe the inside of your decorating with a green gel colored some shades darker than your green leaf color and you will have a distinctive stripe. When doing flowers, at the place coming off the leaves, add some vine tendrils and then some cascading vines done in a deep green colored piping gel (use a fine to medium round tip - like a writing tip for this). It adds dimension and interest to the flower design.

Writing Messages: Either use clear gel and then tint with your desired shade of paste or liquid food color or use pre-colored decorative gel when writing your message on a frosted cake or cookie. If you want your writing to have a 3D effect then pipe your message first with icing and then re-write on top of the icing message with gel.  By adding 1/2 teaspoon of piping gel to thin consistency icing, you'll produce smoother writing and printing.

Gluing Rice Paper:  Use piping gel as the glue when you make rice paper designs that you plan to attach to your cookies or cake.  Make sure you use icing to pipe around your rice paper design and hide the paper seams once you have it in place.

More GREAT Tips for Using Piping Gel – Provided by KCI Customers and Newsletter Recipients

Use Piping Gel to Make Complex Designs on Your Cakes and Cookies  

Tint piping gel with the lightest yellow possible – just so it is visible against white icing.  
Put it in a pastry bag fitted with a #1 tip.  
Draw a pattern on a piece of wax paper using an indelible marker.  You can lay the wax paper on top of a design and simply trace!  
Turn the wax paper over so the ink in on the backside.  Spray backside with a light coating of vegetable oil spray.  
Pipe the gel on to the design.  
CAREFULLY place side with gel design on top of cake or cookie – it’s best if you have let the frosting harden for a few minutes.  Carefully press the gel with your fingers – gently -- and then lift the wax paper off.  
The design will have transferred to the cake or cookie.  
Now use a slightly larger decorating tip with regular frosting and go over the gel outline then fill with colors.  
If your cake or cookies are iced with chocolate or dark icing you don’t need to tint the gel first.

You should be able to get two or three transfers from each sheet of wax paper.  

Use Piping Gel to Add Sparkling Sugar to Your Cookies

If you use clear piping gel you can sprinkle colored sugars or sparkling sugar onto the piping gel for a festive look.  For example, use the piping gel and outline a snowflake pattern.  Remove the wax paper, sprinkle with edible glitter and you have a sparkling snowflake.  Use the same method and transfer an initial or name onto a wedding/birthday cake or cookies.

Tips and Ideas for Using Piping Gel

Draw an air balloon.  Fill the sections with colored piping gel, or colored icing and then you have a sparkling air balloon.

Use colored piping gel for raindrops on cakes and cookies.  It shines just like the real thing.

Use clear piping gel to add a few drops of dew to flowers.

For Halloween, make caldron shaped cookies.  Color the caldron black.  Use orange icing for the fire, and yellow for the bubbling brew.  Spread piping gel over the yellow to add a realistic look.  (This would be great for Harry Potters goblet of fire.

Use piping gel as the glue to attach decorations to cakes and cookies covered with gum paste.

Warm piping gel in the microwave and use it to coat cakes before you put on a fondant and/or rolled buttercream icing.  The gel fills the holes and makes for a smooth surface.  It also does not detract from the flavor the base cake as does warmed syrup and or jam.

Warmed piping gel is also used to crumb coat cakes before icing with buttercream.  Ice the cake and allow to dry till sticky.  Then apply the buttercream.  It is much easier to keep the icing smooth.

Piping gel also helps to stabilize the meringue on pies.  Just use about one tablespoon for each three to four egg whites.  It helps to keep them from “weeping”.

Blue or bluish-green piping gel makes WONDERFUL water for a cake, cupcakes or cookies with a beach or swimming pool theme.  It’s also really fun to mess with to get the right “wave” shapes – just pull it up with the flat part of a narrow spatula.  By the way, this takes LOTS of piping gel.

You can paint baked cookies with piping gel.  Use a small container – the top of a margarine container works well – put 2 teaspoons of clear piping gel and a small amount of paste or gel color until the desired color is reached.  Stir and add dots of water until paint consistency is reached.  Paint the cookies with a paintbrush and allow to dry.

You can flavor piping gel with a little vanilla or flavored oils.

 Easy Marshmallow Fondant Recipe and Tips

Here is a recipe for a marshmallow fondant you can make, roll, cut and attach to your cookies with piping gel. This is not recommended for cakes but you can use it on cupcakes.

1-cup miniature marshmallows
1 Tablespoon water
A few drops of flavoring
About 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Place the marshmallows in a large microwave safe container with the water. Gently melt to a smooth mixture, removing after a few seconds to stir.  Add powdered sugar a little at a time until you cannot stir anymore in.  Knead in more sugar until you have very soft pliable dough.

You can use this dough immediately as the cornstarch in the marshmallows helps to stabilize the fondant.  If you do not intend to use it immediately, then leave it a little softer.

If you use colored marshmallows you’ll have a nice pastel colored fondant but you can color the white with food color.

Roll out as thin as you like on a powdered sugar surface.  Cut with the same cookie cutters you used to cut out your cookies.  Use thinned piping gel to attach to the baked cookies.  If your cookies have a rough surface do not thin the piping gel, it will help to create a smooth surface on which to put the marshmallow fondant – this icing will show any imperfections.  Gently rub the surface and it will become shiny.

Allow to set up for a few minutes.

If you pipe thinned cookie dough onto your unbaked cookie dough into an initial perhaps, you can lay the fondant over top and the initial will show through.  Then you can paint the initial with piping gel and define it with the sparkling sugar or edible glitter.

You can layer fondant over fondant.  For instance, put a layer of fondant on a heart shaped cookie then cut additional tiny hearts from colored fondant and use thinned piping gel to clue the tiny hearts onto the large one.

Try using a smaller cookie cutter as a stencil.  Put the smaller cookie cutter on top and sprinkle glitter in the middle.

This fondant is very popular with the kids.  They love to play with it like clay and then eat it – if their hands are clean of course.

TO ORDER YOUR PIPING GEL, CLICK HERE