What is piping gel and where do I find it? I have seen it mentioned for making piped leaves nice and pointed. I did my first cake last night and the leaves were a little funky as you can see. Any thoughts??
Penny

Here's the link to the thread about making leaves using piping gel:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-14696.html

I had a similar problem & several people told me to use piping gel.

piping gel is a glucose based gel, used alot for writting on cakes, it comes in those little tubes in colors, use it to add to icing to smooth out and give it a little more elasticity in the icing. Added to thin it helps to get points on leaves. It will also help you to get smooth edges on your roses if added to stiff icing. The clear comes in a small tub ( it is really yellowish ) and that is what you use to add to the icing aprox. 1/2 teaspoon to a cup of icing.
it can also be used for gel transfers

I always use the 352 tip for just about every leaf I do. It seems to work better, no matter what type of icing I use. I usually thin my buttercream with filtered water to make leaves. I have tried piping gel, and get a similar effect, but the water is cheaper.

Thank you all for the ideas!

You can use light corn syrup in place of piping gel for thinning your icing.

You also might want to make sure that your leaf tip is fully open. If you are getting "broken" points on your piped leaves, carefully (so as not to poke yourself if you slip) put your spatula blade into the slit of the leaf tip and rock it back and forth a bit to make the opening a little bit wider. This will greatly improve the points of your leaves. The reason the 352 "chicken beak" leaf tip makes such nice points is because it's open so wide. I love that tip and it's pretty much the only one I use for leaves.

Hope that helps you some....

Deanna