Twinkies!

My mother (an enabler of my addiction to cake pans of every size and shape) bought me a Twinkie kit for Christmas, so of course, I had to try it out before we all go back to school tomorrow.  The kit comes with a pan, a recipe book, and a piping bag.

I followed the easy directions to make a basic cream filled Twinkie (the recipe book also includes directions to fill these golden cakes with a marshmallow, chocolate and peanut butter filling as well.) 

Cake Recipe

1 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 C unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 C sugar
2 large eggs, plus 1 yolk
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3/4 C milk
(for best results, have all ingredients at room temperature)

Preheat oven to 350 and generously spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt) over a large bowl.  Then in mixing bow, cream the butter and sugar with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, egg yolk and vanilla extract.  Reduce the speed to low and scrape the sides of the bow.  Pour milk and continue mixing until smooth.  Pour the dry ingredients gradually into the bowl of wet ingredients.  Continue to mix until blended.  Do not over mix.

Spoon batter evenly into the pan, filling each oval about 3/4 full (I used an ice-cream scoop).  Bake for about 15 minutes or until cake tops spring back to the touch or a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.  Cakes should not be too golden in color.  Cool in pan for 15 minutes.  Invert pan onto a rack; gently tap the bottom of the pan, and lift it off.  Trasfer cakes to a wire cooling rack and cool completely before filling.

Vanilla Cream Filling

3 C confectioners' sugar
1 C unsalted butter (at room temperature)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1-3 tbsp. whipping cream

Whisk together the sugar and butter until thoroughly combined.  (could use a stand mixer)  Add vanilla extract and cream.  Continue to whisk for 1 more minute, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency. 

As you can see, some of the cakes, puffed up in the middle, and never sank back down, so those few did not sit nicely on the rack.

Once cooled, fill the pastry bag with the vanilla cream and insert the tip into the bottom of the cakes.  Squeeze about a tsp. of filling into 3 separate locations of the cakes.

They look very much like a Twinkie in the end, but they do not taste like a Twinkie.  Honestly, the filling tastes like my basic buttercream frosting I use as a base for almost every frosting I make.  It does not taste like the light airy creamy filling of the real Hostess product.  The cake is not quite as spongy as the real thing and definitely doesn't taste like it.  It tastes like a basic white cake mix. 

So, what I think I'll do next time, is use this pan to be more creative.  Maybe stick with the same cake, but insert a jelly, or a coconut extract flavored cream, and then drizzle chocolate frosting over the top, as you would a bundt cake.  Or maybe I'll make peanut butter cakes and fill them with jelly and dust the tops with powdered sugar.  There are many possibilities...the pan will not collect dust in my cupboard...thank you Mom!