Artisan Twinkies Made From Scratch

The classic poets tell us there is always one love in your life that just never dies – that individual you consider “the one.”  For Sherlock Holmes it was the actress Irene Adler.  For Marc Antony it was Cleopatra.  For Richard Burton it was Elizabeth Taylor.   For Steve Austin it was Jamie Somers.  For Batman it was Catwoman.  

For me, it’s the Twinkie.     

Yes, the Twinkie is “the one.”  I’ve already chronicled how the obsession began in my junior high school years during the Golden Age of lunchbox treats.   I would anxiously await the noon hour to get a bite of that airy yellow sponge cake and glossy marshmallow filling.   But alas, a lifetime of happiness was not to be.  More recently, we mourned the demise of the Twinkie, as parent company Hostess became a victim of the Great Recession and all those hateful health food fanatics.

It all seemed over, yet I never quite gave up hope.   I’d hear rumors that the Twinkie had been “purchased” and would soon be staging a triumphant return.   Yet the end-of-the-aisle shelf at the grocery store that once proudly displayed boxes of Twinkies was instead stocked with a variety of snack food posers.  

Finally, I decided to take matters into my own hands.    My muse was this book – “Classic Snacks Made From Scratch” by Casey Barber.   

Barber understands the way to a suburbanite’s heart is with cream-filled snack cakes.   She offers dozens of kitchen-tested recipes for recreating authentic iconic snacks, including Sno-Balls, Devil Dogs, Tastykakes, Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes, and yes … my beloved Twinkie.

The day arrives for our fateful reunion and my heart is pounding with anticipation.   I understand there are some foodies who might look unkindly on the Twinkie, and consider it “the blonde” of the pastry world.   Yet, as I peruse Ms. Barber’s recipe, I can see that the torpedo-shaped sponge cake is grounded in classic pastry techniques. 

For authentic shape, Barber recommends a canoe pan.   I’d never heard of such a thing, but apparently some smart marketers have created the perfect Twinkie-shaped pan, just for purists like me.  Praise be amazon.com.   (And, if anyone tells me I need another specialty baking pan like I need a hole in the head, I’m gonna smack you!) 

The batter contains a mere six ingredients.   Some Twinkie recipes online suggest the use of a boxed pound cake mix.   But in this recipe, Barber gives a nod to the classic French sponge cake.   Egg yolks are separated from whites.  Both are whipped and then folded together like a soufflé, resulting in an oh-so-lite-and-airy-Audrey-Hepburn-in-Breakfast-at-Tiffanys-poofy batter.  The egg yolks create that distinctive Twinkie blondeness. 

Ten minutes in a 350-degree oven, and there’s no mistaking that renowned, shapely sponge cake. 

The pillowy, glossy-white filling is a classic marshmallow cream, or in pastry terminology, “an Italian meringue,” which is boiled sugar whipped into egg whites.      I’m a little nervous attempting to heat a sugar syrup to the soft-ball stage as I’ve had a few kitchen disasters with hot syrup in the past.   Yet the technique is successful, and I beat the boiling sugar into a batch of egg whites whipped to a soft peak.    

I’ve seen these kinds of clouds flying at 30 thousand feet, and there’s enough extra filling to gleefully lick the spoon.  

Once the cakes are cooled, it’s time to fill them.  Here’s where I start to feel like a mad scientist as I fill this slightly threatening pastry syringe with marshmallow cream.   

Three tiny holes are made in each cake and the pastry syringe is inserted.  You can feel the sponge cake swelling with cream.   This is where a little industrialization might actually come in handy.   

It’s messy, and a little tedious filling each cake by hand, but really no different than filling éclairs or pate a choux.  

The look is the ultimate in eye candy, and the taste is sheer bliss – light, frothy and delectable insouciance (but minus the cloying chemical aftertaste we all know and love).

Yes, there are some who might denigrate this classic cream-filled sponge cake or laugh at its slightly frivolous name.  But, I remain firmly and hopelessly in love, even more so, having crafted my own Twinkies lovingly by hand.  Who needs a tarte Tatin, anyway?  As Shakespeare might have written, “A Twinkie, by any other name would smell as sweet.” 

©2013 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

The Demise of the Twinkie

It was not the kind of news I needed to hear at the end of a long, hard week.  I’d only been seated at my desk for a few moments, when I get the word – Hostess Brands is shutting down.  They will immediately cease production of a legion of iconic snack cakes.   While somewhere there is probably a registered dietitian rejoicing at the news, my reaction is dramatically different.  I feel an immediate and alarming sense of panic.  I leave my hot coffee on my desk, and rush to the lobby.   I’ve got to find Twinkies!!!

Quickly I make my way to three different Manhattan stores and I come up empty handed.   All I can find are bags of granola, Power Bars and gluten-free snacks.   Honesty, sometimes Manhattan is way too health conscious for its own good.

I'll be honest.  I may like to cook from scratch, but I am hardly a food snob.  I grew up in the 1960s when Swanson TV Dinners, Cool Whip, Shake ‘n Bake Chicken and Tang were considered haute cuisine.   And, then there was the Twinkie, that spongy yellow torpedo of cake filled with whiter-than-white marshmallow cream.   I would pack one in my lunchbox every day in junior high school.   The svelte blonde bombshell in eighth grade that I had a huge crush on would purse her lips, wink at me and call me “Twinkie the Kid.”   Twinkies made me a chick magnet.  

Much of the news coverage of the past 48 hours has rather cruelly categorized the Twinkie as “junk food,” but I have a different view.   The Twinkie sits squarely at the apex of edible art, culinary innovation and youthful sugar cravings.   Some culinary philosophers even see the Twinkie as a groundbreaking precursor of the molecular gastronomy trend.   I mean, foam is foam.   Why spend a lot of money if you can just pick up a pack of Twinkies in the deli. 

The Twinkie inspired some of my early culinary efforts.   I once served a dessert called “Undescended Twinkies,” a caloric suburban masterpiece created by Jane and Michael Stern for their book “Square Meals.”  A postmodern take on the trifle, eight Twinkies are floated on a lake of orange Jell-O blended with 7-Up, pineapple juice and vanilla ice cream.  The Sterns wrote, “If the gelatin is properly chilled, it will resist the Twinkies.  You will push them in; they will slowly rise.  It is a tense moment, like the scene in Psycho when Tony Perkins tries to sink Janet Leigh’s car.  But remember, you don’t want them buried.  Just semidescended in the lush, peach-colored ooze.”  

Don’t judge me.  Some of my dinner guests were horrified but I thought it was the coolest dessert ever.  If you dare to raise an eyebrow at “Undescended Twinkies,” you ought to check out “The Twinkies Cookbook”  published by Hostess in 2006 (Yes, I own a copy).   It includes recipes for “Twinkie Burritos,” “Chicken-Raspberry Twinkie Salad,” “Twinkie Lasagna,” and a “Ribbon and Bows Twinkie Wedding Cake.”   Enough said. 

But I digress.   Back at my desk, facing a bleak and Twinkie free future, I yearn to commiserate with kindred spirits.  On Facebook, my friend Allison says she’ll locate a stash of Twinkies for me in Pittsburgh.  I consider purchasing a plane ticket. Mad Me-Shell sends me a recipe for do-it-yourself Twinkies, and notes that her favorite poutine shop in Chicago will be paying homage by serving deep-fried Twinkies at their Sunday Brunch.   Zany is oddly absent from this conversation, but finally surfaces on Saturday morning with this comment:  “Sorry for the late reply.  I’ve been on a Twinkie shopping spree across Chicago.”   She also asks Mad what time she should arrive for brunch.   

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  I take to the Internet, and locate a box of ten Twinkies on amazon.com.    I am distracted for a moment before purchasing, and I note that the in-stock supplies are dropping like a stone.   So I hit the orange “Buy Now with 1-Click” button.   Better to be safe than sorry.  It’s a good thing, too, because when I get back to Long Island that night, I visit three more stores and the shelves are bare.   I’m too late.  The Twinkie addicts have been hoarding all day.   A last check of the Internet shows that Twinkies are now being auctioned at a premium price on ebay.   I’ll be pleasantly surprised if my box of Twinkies actually makes it into my hands.  There’s a lot that can happen between the warehouse and my front steps in this post apocalyptic Twinkie-less world.  

Which might mean I ate my last Twinkie this past April at a “Mad Men” style dinner hosted by my college roommate Ford MacKenzie.   I brought dessert – a platter of Twinkies served with Chocolate Pudding and Dream Whip.  The Twinkies were light and luscious – a little pillowy taste of heaven with a perky artificial aftertaste.  

Okay, so it’s not like I dined on Twinkies regularly at this stage in my life.  But, the thought of Twinkies going the way of the dinosaur, the Edsel and Gourmet Magazine is a bit unnerving.    It was comforting to know that the frothy, light Twinkie seemed to endure in an often dark and uncertain world.  R.I.P. Twinkie the Kid.  

©2012 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved