Homemade twinkies, anyone have a recipe?

[aidensnd2]

Trying to make homemade twinkies and I'm not having much luck. I can't get the cake right. All the recipes I've seen online just say to add whites to packaged cake mix but I want to make it from scratch. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[devlin]

Trying to make homemade twinkies and I'm not having much luck. I can't get the cake right. All the recipes I've seen online just say to add whites to packaged cake mix but I want to make it from scratch. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

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There was an article somewhere recently (maybe The New York Times?) about how twinkies are made. The list of ingredients was long, and many of them obscure beyond belief (like spelunking in Sri Lanka or something to get a particular thing). I'm thinking it would be next to impossible for the home cook to replicate it.

Which may be a good thing. Because as bad as I know they are for you, I love the suckers.

So if you do happen to ever get it right, please post with a detailed description of how you got there.

[mrose]

Looking on Bakingcircle.com, they have a lot of good recipes & good baking info.

[plk]

It seems like it's just a regular yellow sponge cake, but there probably are weird ingredients that make it taste uniquely "twinkie-ish." If you could get your hands on the recipe booklet that comes with this twinkie-baking kit, I bet you would get close, though.

[azlee]

Looking on Bakingcircle.com, they have a lot of good recipes & good baking info.

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the bakingcircle.com is your best bet. and king arthur flour (host of bakingcircle.com) does sell a pan for making twinkie shaped cakes and that pan also comes with a recipe

and bed bath and beyond is having a clearance on this twinkie pan set with recipes hostess brand twinkie baking set

Edited April 25, 2007 by azlee (log)

[aidensnd2]

Cool, thanks everyone. I have the recipe from bakingcircle in the oven now

[FistFullaRoux]

Yeah, but what about the filling? The cake is only there to hold the filling.

[Geminigirl]

Cool, thanks everyone. I have the recipe from bakingcircle in the oven now

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and?.......

geminigirl

[DCP]

There was an article somewhere recently (maybe The New York Times?) about how twinkies are made. The list of ingredients was long, and many of them obscure beyond belief (like spelunking in Sri Lanka or something to get a particular thing).

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This article may not be exactly what you were looking for, but is what I immediately though of at your reference:

Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget.

("You Are What You Grow" by Michael Pollan from last Sunday's New York Times.)

And it's a great read, to boot.

(Edited to correct duplicated article title.)

Edited April 25, 2007 by DCP (log)

[plk]

Twinkies originally had a bananna cream filling, but now they have a vanilla cream filling. Something about a bananna shortage during WWII. So, I suggest some of each, sort of a Twinkies through the ages retrospective.

[devlin]

There was an article somewhere recently (maybe The New York Times?) about how twinkies are made. The list of ingredients was long, and many of them obscure beyond belief (like spelunking in Sri Lanka or something to get a particular thing).

←

This article may not be exactly what you were looking for, but is what I immediately though of at your reference:

Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget.

("You Are What You Grow" by Michael Pollan from last Sunday's New York Times.)

And it's a great read, to boot.

(Edited to correct duplicated article title.)

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I read that one too and when I read that line about the 39 ingredients, I thought Pollan must have read the same article I referenced above.

So, anyway, after a cursory search at the Times, I ended up googling "twinkies" and found it, an MSNBC book review of Steve Ettinger's new book Twinkie, Deconstructed.

[ninetofive]

I made these a couple months ago, and believe it or not, this vegan version was pretty darn tasty:

http://shmooedfood.blogspot.com/2006/01/vegan-twinkies.html

[aidensnd2]

Well, the results weren't as pleasing as I had hoped. The cake was tasty, I added a couple of vanilla beans and a splash of rum, and I suppose you could see some similarity to a Twinkie but the texture and appearance weren't so close. I didn't bother filling them as until I get the cake down I'm not even going to think about the filling. They were quite tasty though. Interestingly they didn't really want to release from my silicon pans and as they're pretty fragile I lost a couple in the depanning. Definitely closer than a genoise though, which is what I had based my previous attempts on...

[natasha1270]

Here is the William-Sonoma recipe:

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/reci...7BB2E701A26393D

It's been a while since I made them but I recall that they did turn out fairly similar. I bought the WS "cream boat" pans from the outlet a few years back and had no problem with release.

eta: if the link dies, go to their website and search the recipes for Cream Boat Cakelets

Edited April 25, 2007 by natasha1270 (log)