Piping Tools for Gingerbread Cookies: Bag, Tip or Tube — Which Gives the Finest Lines?

For fine gingerbread decorating, the best choice is a disposable piping bag fitted with a 1.5 mm metal tip — the opening is precise, round and doesn't stretch, so your line stays the same from the first cookie to the last. Here are the five options at a glance:

1. Piping bag with a writing tip (1–2 mm) — the finest, straightest lines, plus dots and lettering. The best choice if you're decorating more than one tray.

2. Parchment paper cone — free and surprisingly fine, but the opening gradually gets soggy and tears.

3. Snipped bag with no tip — quick and cheap for outlining and flooding, but the opening is uneven for fine detail.

4. Plastic icing syringe (gun) with nozzles — looks like "the real thing," but the plunger is stiff to push, your hand tires quickly and the pressure is hard to control.

5. Ready-made tubes of icing or gel — handy for kids, but most of them never set properly and the line is thicker.

You'll find the full decorating process, from icing to designs, in Decorating Gingerbread Cookies Step by Step. Here we're only looking at what to decorate with.

A metal writing tip makes the finest lines because it has a smooth, perfectly round opening that doesn't warp under pressure. The icing comes out as a continuous thread of even thickness, with no ragged edges.

• A seamless tip (made from one piece, with no weld) has no inner edge for icing to catch on — which is why, for example, the PME Supatube writing tip no. 1.5 is used for lettering, lace and fine ornaments. It's about 4 cm long, so it fits even a small bag.

• A small bag works better for gingerbread than a large one. 30 × 17 cm piping bags hold only a few spoonfuls of icing — the bag sits comfortably in your palm, and the icing doesn't have time to dry out.

• One tip, several colors: you can move the tip between bags, or buy a few and keep one for each color.

Writing tips come in other sizes too — you'll find an overview of shapes and sizes among the piping tips. For gingerbread, one or two round writing tips are all you need.

A 1–1.5 mm opening is enough for fine lines and lettering, 1.5–2 mm for dots and outlines, and 2–3 mm for flooding larger areas. The smaller the opening, the stiffer the icing needs to be, or the line will spread — and the larger it is, the more icing comes out with each squeeze.

• 1 mm — lace, tiny lettering, hair-thin lines. It takes a steady hand and icing without a single grain of sugar, or the tip will clog.

• 1.5 mm — the all-round size for gingerbread: outlines, snowflakes, dots, little hearts. If you're buying only one tip, buy this one.

• 2 mm — bolder outlines and bigger pearls that read well from a distance.

• 2–3 mm — flooding areas with thinner icing (with a bag that has no tip, just snip off the end).

When you snip a bag with no tip, cut only 1–2 mm off the end at first and test a line on paper. You can always make the opening bigger, but never smaller.

A parchment cone is enough if you decorate a few dozen cookies once a year and have some patience. You make it from a triangle of baking parchment (roughly 30 × 30 × 42 cm) rolled into a point; once it's filled, you snip a millimeter off the tip.

• Pros: it costs nothing, the opening can be really tiny, and the cone is so small that it's easy to hold.

• Cons: the paper gets damp, the opening stretches as you decorate and the cone can unroll. Expect to swap it for a new one within an hour.

A snipped disposable bag is a step more reliable — it doesn't leak and it won't unroll. It's perfectly fine for outlining and flooding. For fine detail, though, scissors can't cut a perfectly round opening, so the line tends to come out flat or curl to one side. This is where a tip starts to make sense.

A plastic icing syringe and ready-made tubes suit kids and quick decorating better than fine designs.

• Syringe (gun) with nozzles — pressure is controlled by a plunger, so the icing comes out in jerky bursts and your thumb aches after a few cookies. Thick royal icing is hard to push through, and taking it apart and washing it is a chore. The metal nozzles in sets are also often wider than 1.5 mm.

• Ready-made supermarket tubes — these are often a gel or sugar icing that doesn't set completely: the cookies then can't be stacked or packed in bags. The line is thicker and the colors tend to be pastel.

Both have their place — give the tubes to the kids at the Christmas table so they can decorate however they like. For gingerbread you want to give as gifts, reach for a bag with a tip.

Your piping bag should be filled with royal icing — made from egg white and powdered sugar, which hardens to a crisp finish in the air and holds a sharp line. You have three routes:

1. Ready-made mix — FunCakes royal icing is simply mixed with water following the package directions. The most reliable result, with no weighing.

2. Dried egg white + powdered sugar — dried egg white is pasteurized, so you can give the icing to children without worry. As a rough guide, mix 5 g of powder with 30 ml of water (equal to one egg white) and whip with 200–250 g of sifted powdered sugar; you'll find exact amounts on the package.

3. Fresh egg white — the classic from grandma's notebook: 1 egg white to 200–250 g of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. It works, but it means raw egg.

Consistency matters more than the piping tool. For lines with a 1.5 mm tip, the icing should resemble toothpaste — a peak shouldn't flop over. For flooding, thin it with water a drop at a time until a line drawn through it with a knife closes up in about 10 seconds. Always sift the sugar — a single grain will clog a 1 mm tip.

For a deep red icing, use gel food coloring, not liquid — liquid coloring thins the icing before you reach a proper shade. A toothpick tip of ProGel Ruby gel color is enough for a few spoonfuls of icing.

Red deepens over 1–2 hours, so mix it a shade lighter and let it rest, covered. Dark colors also tend to thicken in the bag, so check the consistency again after coloring. How to get a rich red without the icing turning bitter is covered in the article Red Icing for Gingerbread Cookies.

Fill the bag no more than halfway, twist it closed and hold it by the twist with your dominant hand — push with your palm, not with your fingers near the tip.

1. Fit the tip into the bag and snip off the end of the bag so that the tip sticks out about two thirds of the way.

2. Stand the bag in a glass and fold its edge over the rim. Spoon in the icing, no more than halfway.

3. Press out the air toward the tip and twist the bag above the icing a few times; you can secure the twist with a rubber band.

4. Hold the twist between your thumb and index finger of your dominant hand, and use your other hand only to lightly guide the tip.

5. For a line, hold the bag at roughly a 45° angle, touch the cookie, start squeezing and lift the tip 0.5–1 cm above the surface — you let the line "lay down" on the cookie rather than dragging it along. At the end, stop squeezing and touch the tip down.

6. For a dot, hold the bag vertically, just above the surface, squeeze, stop, and only then pull away. You can smooth the peak of the dot with a damp brush.

Between decorating, rest the bag tip-down in a glass with a damp paper towel so the icing in the tip doesn't dry out. First try out a few lines on baking parchment.

A fine line stands out best on a smooth, flat cookie. Try soft gingerbread cookies or tender honey gingerbread that doesn't go hard. For how to roll the dough into a flat, even thickness, see the article How to Roll Dough to an Even Thickness.