November 17, 2012

How to make your own Twinkies.

Chip Ahoy explains:
I have a pan made for East coast style hotdog buns. It's like a flat bread with bumps in it the shape of Twinkies. You cut through for individual hotdog buns, like cakes. So each pan makes about 10 hotdog buns.
There's also a Chicago hot dog bun pan, which seems like it might be easier.
Then squish a filling inside using a pastry bag. You poke a hole in it and like a surgeon deposit the filling by squeezing the bag while simultaneously withdrawing the fill tip through the puncture with machine like precision. 

But the chocolate cupcakes are better. With the white curly frosting on top of thin chocolate ganache. Those can be improved too.

The filling. It's like a whipped cream foam. Lemon custard would be better, or banana. But if you're stuck on white foam then real whipped cream. Or you could jab the can of spray whipped cream in there but then you couldn't control the flavor of it.
Now that I'm poking around over at Amazon, I'm seeing the Kaiser Bakeware Basic Tinplate Eclair/Lady Finger Pan and this Eclair Baking Pan and realizing that Twinkies are eclairs (with the chocolate frosting). And check out the Norpro 3964 Cream Canoe Pan With Bonus 9 Piece Decorating Set:
Old fashioned cream canoes and traditional French eclairs are simple to make with Norpro's Cream Canoe Pan. Featuring durable heavy gauge construction, the pan has 8 elongated cups that are the perfect shape for baking eclairs or cream filled sponge cakes - homemade Twinkies, anyone?
Cream canoes! I Google that term and come up with a recipe for "twinkling good vanilla snack cakes" made in your "a filled cake pan (aka cream canoe pan)." The fall of Hostess is a wake-up call: Get twinkling!

ADDED: You can still buy Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets, which is what we ate in Delaware in the 1950s and 60s. And here are the Tastykake cream-filled cupcakes, which I think you might find similar to the Hostess cupcakes. No white curlicue on top, but I think you might find they taste better.

34 comments:

Unknown said...

It sounds like a lot of work to end up with something that isn't that great tasting to begin with.

Bob Ellison said...

...realizing that Twinkies are eclairs...

I thought they were polymers.

Wince said...

Are Twinkies canaries in the economic coal mine?

High Noon, for Twinkie the Kid.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I can't do any of this until I talk to my union.

caplight45 said...

This is Crap!!! I shouldn't have to go through all that to have a Twinkie. It's the Republican, union-busting, filthy rich plutocrats that have taken away our Twinkies. "Let them eat Little Debbies," they tell each other with scorn.

To the barricades! Obama, save us! Nationalize Twinkies!

KCFleming said...

I'm on strike, so no baking.

Holding out for a better pension.

But my bank account refuses to pay me more, the evil bastard.

Anonymous said...

Orange cupcakes and raspberry zingers; I haven't eaten them in years, but I wish I had had a chance to say goodbye.

Unknown said...

EDH
That was just wrong!
Twinkies have to be eaten properly from the end to the middle or you lose that last gooey bite of pure sugared lard.

chickelit said...

Instead of Twinkies, Madison area (and southern Wisconsin residents) could support the endangered chocolate bismarck. Like euchre once dominated card playing, the bismarck--brought to Wisconsin by German immigrants--once dominated the pastry markets.

Last time I was in Madison they were getting even harder to find--Copps on the east side still sold them.

roesch/voltaire said...

As usual the problem is more complex then the right wing picture. Continental Baking Co. has been bought and re-bought by venture capitalist who ran up $860 million in debt while paying the CEOs millions. I think a combination of the declining appetite for junk food, the the increased debt and the fact that one labour union did not want to take any more pay and benefit cuts from management that failed time and again to improve the bottom line. Interesting that the union did agreed to cuts if the deal included 25% share of the company and $100 million claim in bankruptcy, but that was not enough.

Rusty said...

I'm tryin' to lose weight here!

Darrell said...

If you didn't get to enjoy a real Twinkie--the product sold in the 1960s and 70s that was pretty much the same as it was since it was created--you have no idea how good it was. The crap they have sold for the last thirty years or so would be better used as caulking.

Renee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rusty said...

A roesch/voltaire said...
As usual the problem is more complex then the right wing picture. Continental Baking Co. has been bought and re-bought by venture capitalist who ran up $860 million in debt while paying the CEOs millions. I think a combination of the declining appetite for junk food, the the increased debt and the fact that one labour union did not want to take any more pay and benefit cuts from management that failed time and again to improve the bottom line. Interesting that the union did agreed to cuts if the deal included 25% share of the company and $100 million claim in bankruptcy, but that was not enough.nd


Oooops
Maybe you better know who the actors are before you review a play.


here comes the Hostess twist: because Tim Collins of Ripplewood, was a prominent Democrat, a position which allowed him to get involved in the first bankruptcy process in the first place, due to his proximity with the Teamsters’ long-term heartthrob Dick Gephardt (whose consulting group just happens to also be an equity owner of Hostess). In other words, the traditional republican-cum-PE scapegoating strategy here will be a tough one to pull off since the narrative collapses when considering that it was a Democrat who rescued the firm, only to see it implode in a trainwreck that has resulted in the liquidation of a legendary brand, and 18,500 layoffs.


You know what a bankruptcy is right? the company is reorganized to satisfy THE CREDITORS. Not the unions or the employees.

Here's a tip for you union members in the audience.
Never strike a company in BANKRUPTCY! They already have little to lose.
Strike the company that can afford to meet your demands!
Christ. I got to tell you morons everything.



Darrell said...

The Left knows everything.
Just ask them.

Deirdre Mundy said...

Tastycake's have really gone down in quality since they started shipping them nationally. They were better when they were only produced at one location and you could only get them within a few hours of Philly.

There's something off about the texture of the new ones... not sure what they did to them!

edutcher said...

In times of greatest trial, Americans pull together.

Chip will go down in history with Davy Crockett and Kit Carson.

And Jack Daniel.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

It must be a coincidence that so many companies run by unions - fail.

William said...

It's been years, decades actually, since I ate a twinkie. I don't particularly mourn their passing, but I do mourn the passing of the taste buds and appetite that made them taste so good back then.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

TastyKakes were also eaten in Philly in the 70s and are now available in the Carolinas in the 10s.

Their major appeal is the childhood recollection. I tried to get a friend to like them and she didn't care for them. 'Must be an acquired taste,' she said.

Darrell said...

The union guys all have stories about being on the catwalks above those giant multi-story tanks of batter and hacking up a big loogie to "flavor" the mix. Ask them.

That why they deserve at least double what they make.

Bender said...

I would expect that any buyer of the Hostess snack trademarks and recipes would likely be one of their competitors who have pre-existing factories and distribution, like Tastykake or Little Debbie, and the same with Wonder Bread, but in places where unions (and their job-killing practices) are not very popular.

PWS said...

Oh my God! The Republicans lost! Obama is still president! Obama hates junk food and will tax it out of existence!

Obamacare caused Hostess to go bankrupt!

We can't make twinkies! The world is ending! Everything I love (including my stuff) is going to be taken away from me!

I have to flail my arms over my head and scream!

I'm moving to Canada where hostess is probably still in business!

Darrell said...

Obamacare caused Hostess to go bankrupt!

Funny that you're the only one that mentioned something besides unions.

Peter Hoh said...

Fresh Butterscotch Krimpets. Mmmmmm.

Butterscotch Krimpets that have wandered far from their place of origin. Ehhhhhhh.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Peter Hoh:

Put 'em together, whaddya got?


M-eh.

Rusty said...

edutcher said...
In times of greatest trial, Americans pull together.

Chip will go down in history with Davy Crockett and Kit Carson.

And Jack Daniel


The man is a genius.
He's also named as a person of interest to be interviewed by the police in the event of my death by clogged arteries.

Joan said...

No, no, no. The pendantic foodie in me can't let this go by and I'm surprised no one else has commented on it. Twinkies are not eclairs. Eclairs are puff pastry, choux pate, and twinkies are vanilla sponge cake.

Eclairs are filled with pastry cream, which is a semi-set custard, and twinkies are filled with vanilla "creme" filling.

No one who has eaten both an eclair and a twinkie should confuse the two of them.

Of the two, my children prefer eclairs, although they rarely get them (home made, anyway). They get one box of Twinkies to share every summer vacation. The first half-dozen go quickly, the others hang around and often get trashed.

Sydney said...

I went looking for a Hostess cupcake today. Couldn't find one. Couldn't find a Twinkie, either. I did notice that Little Debbie now has two new products. One looks like a Twinkie. The other looks like a Hostess cupcake,right down to the squiggly line frosting on top. They were not available in single servings, though. Only in multi serving boxes.

rcommal said...

I believe the original Twinkie had a banana cream filling. The switch came after a shortage, and then the stuck with the vanilla.

Bender said...

Little Debbie has been selling copies for a while now.

But just for the record, the "cream" filling is not cream. If it were, it would go bad on the shelf in a day or two, rather than be able to withstand nuclear war and last a thousand years. Instead, the creme filling is largely shortening and sugar/corn syrup.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Creme Filling for Whoopie Pies. Pretty much the same as for twinkies

2 egg whites
1 lb powdered sugar
1 cup of shortening
4 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla.

If we were still allowed to use hydrogenated shortening it would be bliss....and yes. I do believe that the original twinkies were banana creme filled.

rcommal said...

Totally second the "creme," not "cream," filling refs. Obviously so, and my bad.

Steven said...

I think both the anti-union people (whom I often agree with) and the anti-capital people celebrating the death of Hostess are assholes.

As was noted earlier in this thread, the union was not looking for a 40% raise instead of a 25% raise. They were looking for a smaller cut, after they already took a pay cut several years ago. And my understanding -- though I'm less clear on this point -- is that they weren't being paid $100 an hour to play tiddlywinks. There was a union in Syracuse, NY, that voted their employer out of business a year or two back, in which a union member was quoted in the paper saying she would rather her employer go under than take a pay cut, because she had job skills that could easily get her $25 per hour -- after all, she knew how to type. She deserves to live in a ditch, or at least to learn first-hand why 48% of her colleagues voted to keep their jobs at reduced pay. But the handful of anecdotes I've seen here have not been like that.

Meanwhile, you know what you end up with if you invest in the equity of a company that pays a CEO a lot of money and ends up in chapter 7? Nothing. You know what you end up with if you invest in a company that pays a CEO a lot of money and ends up in chapter 11? Not much. The owners of this enterprise risked their money on the chance of a good return and rolled snake eyes. They presumably paid the CEO a lot because they thought that gave them the best chance of succeeding; apparently, it didn't work, either because they were wrong or just because they were unlucky. If you hate people who risk their money on distressed businesses that employ people to produce goods and services that other people want, I hate you.

Also, I don't know anything about this deal the union allegedly came back with, but I hope Roesch/Voltaire isn't suggesting that if a business can be resurrectable with a particular compensation schedule, then it can clearly be resurrectable with the same compensation schedule, but giving up 25% of the upside.

I do agree with much of what Roesch/Voltaire said -- I think this is a circumstance in which labor and capital and the customer base just couldn't come together to produce mutually beneficial trade, probably in large part because the customers' tastes have changed. Maybe better management would do better, or maybe not. Maybe a different labor force would do better, or maybe not. I suspect that someone will buy a lot of the assets and re-create a mini-Hostess, possibly using some of the same workers.

It is worth celebrating that we live in a society in which a company that can no longer serve its customers without losing money will be allowed to fail, so the resources can be put to better use. But at the level of the individual firm failure, it comes with a cost, both to the employees who have to find their more productive employment and to the financiers who lost their money (and who, if such losses were more common, might spend their money on yachts rather than on businesses). Until I see a good reason to believe either that the union was entirely irrational or that management's decision to close was justified solely by spite, I will feel bad for both groups and pissed off at those dancing on the graves of their dreams.