Twinkies are a American icon. They are great, but most of us (adults) would never buy them now because all of the preservatives and chemicals. Now Twinkies never had a shelf-life of 2,000 years like urban legends suggested, but taking a brief look at the ingredients, there are a lot of words that I cannot even pronounce.
Last year, I got the urge to create a Twinkie from scratch using good, wholesome ingredients. Over the last year I have perfected this recipe, and now it is past due to be posted on this site. I have come a long way from my original recipe and mechanics, so you will be able to speed right though all my trials and errors.
If you have read any of my other posts, you will find that my desire is to recreate nostalgic treats with the most authentic look and taste of the original...just without the chemicals and preservatives. "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling"...that was what I was going after.
This recipe has been tested side-by-side with original Twinkies and wins unanimously as the better treat! It is hard to tell them apart visually and many people did not believe that I had made them. It was a good challenge as there are many elements to recreate.
Consider serving these as a dessert for adults. You will get the best reaction from people who remember these as children. My kids love them, but do not appreciate the nostalgia, which you cannot underestimate.
Enjoy!
First, the cake....
Twinkies are not a normal, basic cake mix. My first instinct was that is was a sponge cake recipe as the box implies. However, in my experimentation and research I have discovered it is more like a chiffon cake...which is essentially separating the egg whites and yolks, then combining them later in the recipe...this creates a light, sponge-like quality, but is not too spongy. The cake flavor, also, is very hard to decipher. I tried vanilla, and I tried mild almond and ended up settling on a emulsion flavoring called Princess Cake and Cookie Bakery Emulsion, which is perfect. Honestly, I have no idea what is in the emulsion flavor as it appears to be a secret, but it works. The shape of the Twinkie was key, as you can imagine, and I found several methods to accomplish this. The first way was to partially wrap a standard spice jar and pull off to create a foil canoe. You make as many of these as will fit on a standard cookie sheet. This takes some time and patience, which we seem to have less of and you throw away each "canoe" after it is baked.
The net result is a twinkie-esque shaped treat...which was unsatisfactory to me. Close, but no cigar.
I wanted people to believe that my Twinkies were the real deal. So I bought a Norpro Canoe Pan off of Amazon, which accomplished my task perfectly.
Notice the difference below...
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| Now, these pictures were taken before I really learned how to flour a pan correctly. With my new knowledge, they come out perfectly formed. |
Next, the filling....
The filling went through several major changes as well. My first attempt used a 7-Minute Frosting, which is a whipped, creamy filling that people really liked. My problem with this recipe was that it would begin to dissipate over time. After three days, for instance, some of the Twinkies would taste like they had no filling in them. The problem is because the Twinkies are so spongy, they try to take back the space that the filling is in and kill the foaminess of the filling. So I began to search for alternatives. Many recipes I found called for more of an icing, which honestly does not do it for me...too sugary and not fluffy enough as the original. So I narrowed it to two recipes: one using whipped marshmallow as a core ingredient and one that used milk and shortening as the core ingredients. Both were satisfactory to me, but I did a side by side tasting at a party we hosted and the milk/shortening recipe was a clear winner. I will post all three so you can come to your own conclusions, if you like.
It happens that both the winning cake and the winning filling recipes came from King Arthur Flour's test kitchen and can be found here.
The ingredients..
Twinkie Snack Cakes
- 2 cups unbleached cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup cold water
- 7 eggs, separated
- 1 teaspoon Princess Cake and Cookie Bakery Emulsion (for true Twinkie taste) OR 1 teaspoon vanilla if you do not have time to wait for it to arrive.
2. Separate eggs. It should be said here that it is important when separating eggs that NO yolk gets in the white mixture...NONE. It will compromise the ability of the whites to whip properly, especially for a meringue. For this reason, many times I will use three bowls...one for the yolks, one for the white of the egg I am in the process of separating, and one for the whites that have been separated accurately.
3. Place all ingredients except egg whites into a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth.
4. Beat egg whites until stiff.
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| Now, that's stiff! Perfect! |
6. Fill each section of the snack cake pan 2/3 full. The cakes will puff quite a bit during baking, but will shrink back during cooling. Since this is a chiffon cake, you will want to use the batter as efficiently and quickly as possible, or your cake will become more dense and less spongy (think Pound cake). (I will likely purchase another canoe pan for this very reason...and so will you too once you make these and see how much everybody loves them!)
7. Bake the cakes for 12 minutes, or until light golden brown.
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| See how they overflow? When they cool, they will return to a normal size. |
9. Then using a small utensil (like the one pictured below) tease the twinkies out of the pan on to a wire rack for more cooling. Working my way around the Twinkie, I basically slide the knife down one side and squeeze the Twinkie off of the sides of the pan. Since the Twinke is very spongy, it will spring back to shape.
10. Cool the Twinkies right side up on parchment paper over wire rack...until room temperature. (This also help to shrink the excess Twinkie back into the correct shape, and not leave wire rack marks on bottom. Discerning eyes will notice them...and remember, my goal is to make them indistinguishable from the originals.
The Twinkie Filling #1 (This was the winning recipe.) Others are listed below...
(I tripled the original recipe because I ran out of filling...that will never happen again. Use my quantities.)
- 6 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 12 tablespoons (3/4 cup) salted butter
- 12 tablespoons (3/4 cup) shortening
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1. In a small saucepan cook flour and milk over medium heat until it appears pasty. Stir constantly and do not allow mixture to brown. Remove from heat and let cool 1 minute. Add vanilla and stir until smooth. Press a piece of plastic wrap down on the surface of the paste to avoid forming a skin and set aside to cool completely.
2. In the bowl of your mixer beat butter, shortening, and sugar until fluffy, scraping bowl to fully incorporate ingredients. Add cooled flour/milk mixture and continue to beat 5 minutes on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy. Use to fill snack cakes or cupcakes. Filling will remain creamy; store at room temperature 3-4 days.
2. In the bowl of your mixer beat butter, shortening, and sugar until fluffy, scraping bowl to fully incorporate ingredients. Add cooled flour/milk mixture and continue to beat 5 minutes on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy. Use to fill snack cakes or cupcakes. Filling will remain creamy; store at room temperature 3-4 days.
3. Fill a 1 gallon Ziploc bag with the filling mix, seal the bag, and then cut off small piece of the corner. This will allow you to load your injector without a huge mess...there will still be a small one...there always has to be...
3. For the injection, you can use an icing piper bag, or an injector (one came with the canoe pan.) I have both and they each work fine. There are benefits and drawbacks to both. With the injector, you can be more precise with the quantity you are injecting. However, the problem with the injector is that it needs to be filled many times.
In either case you are using the following head...which allows the filling to squirt out the sides when the tip is pressed into the Twinkie. This is called a "star " piping tip because it creates star shapes on cakes. For Twinkies, a fatter tip is better.
4. Using a chopstick, take each (fully cooled) Twinkie by hand, flip it upside down, and poke three holes from the bottom to about 2/3rds the way up. Using a stirring motion press the chopstick in and move it around in a circular fashion to expand the hole slightly. You want to be careful not to poke too far into the Twinkie, but create as much space as possible. This is important.
5. Holding the Twinkie upside down in your hand, insert the piping tip deep into the hole. Begin squeezing the icing in while simultaneously removing the tip slowly from the Twinkie. This allows as much icing into the Twinkie as possible. You will feel the Twinkie expand in your hand and will get good at judging how much can be injected without it exploding. Remember that the Twinkie is a sponge-like cake and will have a good deal of flexibility which is helpful. Wipe any excess from the bottom. Refuse any urge to lick the Twinkie...you will find yourself doing this unconsciously if not careful.
7. Store the Twinkies in a sealed container with each layer separated by parchment paper. They will stay fresh for several days. However, they rarely last that long.
Other Filling Recipes
Other Filling Recipes
Twinkie Filling #2 (Second Choice)
This recipe seems to originate from Todd Wilbur's clone recipe website. I like his style although, for this Twinkies cake recipe he uses pound cake mix with separated eggs to achieve a more chiffon type cake. I prefer individual ingredients as I am trying to avoid preservatives, etc. This filling recipe was also doubled from its original as I ran out the first time I used it...
- 4 teaspoons very hot water
- Rounded 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 cups marshmallow creme (2 7-oz. jars)
- 1 cup shortening
- 2/3 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
1. Combine the salt with the hot water in a small bowl and stir until salt is dissolved. Let this mixture cool.
2. Combine the marshmallow creme, shortening, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl and mix well with an electric mixer on high speed until fluffy.
3. Add the salt solution to the filling mixture and combine.
Twinkie Filling #2 (Third Choice)
Seven Minute Frosting
This recipe is a great filling but due to the sponge nature of the Twinkie, it presses back into the cavity where the filling is and will compress the filling to virtually nothing if enough time goes by. If you are serving the same day, this would be ideal. The recipe can be found within another snack cake recipe for Ring Dings that I did.
