My wife might freak out lol but i think ill give it a try just see.. Thank god we have 2 microwaves.

The thing you learn on this site.

Well, this is something that I am going to do next time! I do have a question for you Junebuggy, can I use another kind of soap and add a dash of bleach to it without having a chemical reaction from the microwave?
Thanks

What I instruct my students who have no dishwaters to do is place all their tips and couplers into a plastic bowl, fill halfway with the hottest water that comes out of the tap, and add a teaspoon or two of Dawn. Snap on the lid and shake for half a minute or so. Drain soapy water, rinse tips and couplers under running water, and toss onto a paper towel or dishcloth to air dry. It's all done in under 3 minutes.

I can't believe there are people in the world who actually use the tip brush. Poor people!! That takes entirely too much time and effort.

jscakes, do not mix dish soap and bleach, either in or out of the microwave.

~ Sherri

I guess I need to invest in some Dawn. I use a strainer when I'm rinsing my tips. I have a small one (not sure why they have one that small in the pampered chef set) and it works well for the tips.

Personally, I don't like Dawn dish soap because the smell seems to linger in the plastic items, especially tupperware. (just my opinion ladies) I use Palmolive dish soap and have always used a drop of bleach in the wash water when cleaning my icing/cake utensils and now I'm not supposed to? Hmmm, I do know some chemicals you are not supposed to mix but I didn't think the mild dish soap was one of them.
Are there any others out there who do this, I'm curious if I'm the only "obsessive compulsive" one when it comes to cleaning everything!!!

I agree jscakes! I don't use bleach everytime I wash my tips/bags/couplers but I do use it once a month to clean everything I have with it. When I worked at a school lunch room, bleach has to be in the wash water & rinse water. My hands were so dry & cracking when I worked there but we had to do it. No problems from the bleach so far & I've been using it a long time~.

I clean my stuff the VERY LAZY WAY!!!! I fill the sink up w/ VERY HOT WATER, Dawn, & dump everthing in it. I shake the stuff around & let it sit till it's cooled off (overnite is the norm) then I fill the other side of the sink up the same way. Move all the stuff to that sink! Then do it one more time! All I have to do is rinse them off & air dry~ Like I said I'm lazy when it comes to bags/couplers/tips. LOL

I have noticed that Dawn smell too! Mostly it's there if you let stuff sit for too long. I also notice that with bleach too. I can smell it on items for days after.

Mostly I use dawn because I have my dish soap out in a pretty bottle and the blue matches my kitchen. Plus it's great for that disgusting class buttercream.

Jscakes, your not alone. My Grandfather was diagnosed with mouth cancer nearly 20 years ago and being very uneducated and just plain scared my grandmother started washing all of the dishes with dawn and a drop or two of bleach. Well, we all know better now but it is something my mom and I just can't seem to let go of. We still put a drop or two in just out of habit.

bleach triggers my asthma, so that is one cleaning agent that I never have in my house. I scrub and then "sterilize" in the dishwasher.

I had a ton of tips and couplers from a novelty cake last night so I decided to give the microwave idea a try. I figured that best case scenario-it would work and worse case - I would get a new microwave (mine is 20+years old). It worked beautifully and I can't thank Junebuggy enough!

I gotta try this one

I just tried this, after a bit of hesitation, and I will not clean my tips any other way now!! I threw in a couple of couplers and it took the icing right off, I just had to run through another hot sink to get the rest of the oil residue off.

Thanks for this great!, but unusual, way of cleaning!

leily

OK, last night I tried the microwave cleaning tip. I watched it the entire time. DH saw me and asked what I was doing, when I told him, he exclaimed it was metal! I told him I was only doing once tip and watching it. He said he wasn't worried about the tip, but the micro. In his defense, we have an advantium oven, which is a microwave that costs about $700.

Anyway, it seemed to work fine. I put the dirty tip in, and it seemed clean when it came out. I put it in the drain rack and will see once it dries how clean it really came.

Thanks for the cleaning tip!

After reading this, I'm going to give it a try... I need a new microwave anyways...lol... i hate the cleaning up process of the tips too...ugh.. This sounds really easy to me..
I'll let you know what happens on my next cake clean up..
Happy zapping,
cakegal

I just keep a large container filled w/boiling water. Then I just drop my tips
in as I go along. By the time I am done, they are all cleaned.