My son gifted his youngest sister a twinkie maker for Yule last year. She loves to bake so this was such a fun gift for her to receive… we tried it immediately, making the recipes from the booklet which came in the kit… and unfortunately they were not edible, and honestly not even, “makeable”. We burst our frosting bag trying to fill the twinkies because the mixture was WAY too think and then the cake itself was too dense and didn’t taste a thing like a twinkie. I’m honestly not too surprised that twinkie didn’t actually give away the twinkie recipe even though it was listed as “The Classic Hostess Twinkie”. Ha! Ok… but now we want twinkies!!!! Here began our process of trying to find a working recipe that we could use.

We are happy to share with you after months of throwing out bad outcomes… a homemade twinkie that we can happily consume with you! You should see the mess that is now our little twinkie maker. It’s covered with crusty, hardened failure, but now can create yum.

I found a recipe for Twinkie Cupcakes on Pinterest. They are intended to be baked in a cupcake tin but the recipe looked promising so I figured… we can alter that to use in the twinkie maker.

And we did!

I used the recipe I found from Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons for the cake portion of the twinkies. It’s a great recipe she‘s put together and especially if you can make this in a twinkie maker and have that twinkie shape… it’s VERY close to an actual Twinkie! I altered it slightly (the eggs and portion filling/time) so that I could use it in my twinkie maker. The filling is essentially from the Twinkie recipe book but thinned down so that we don’t destroy our equipment.

CAKE INGREDIENTS:

• 1 box of yellow cake mix. I used Betty Crocker.

• 3 large eggs, room temperature.

• 3/4 cup vegetable oil.

• 1 box vanilla instant pudding.

• 3/4 cup water.

FILLING INGREDIENTS:

• 1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature.

• 1 cup powdered sugar.

• 1/2 a container of marshmallow fluff about 3.25oz.

• 1tsp vanilla extract.

• vegetable oil and water up to a few Tablespoons each as needed.

• food coloring (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix together cake ingredients with a hand mixer or stand mixer; cake mix, eggs, oil, instant pudding, and water: until smooth.

2. Preheat your twinkie maker until ready to go. Spray generously with non-stick oil. Fill the cake trays half full with the cake mixture. Close the twinkie maker and then bake twinkies for 5 minutes. Check twinkie is done by inserting a toothpick and making sure it comes out clean. Continue baking for another minute if needed. Remove twinkies form maker. This part is tricky! I like to loosen twinkie by running a spatula around the edges and then I tip the whole machine over and let the twinkies fall out onto a towel covered surface. USE CAUTION!!! The hot oil spray will drip out as well as the machine being hot. BUT, I find this easier than trying to pop the twinkie out with a spatula… the twinkies are very warm and soft and I break them with the individual pop out method but have had good luck with the dump out method.

3. Lay the finished twinkies on a cooling rack to cool completely.

4. Continue until all batter is gone. Unplug your twinkie maker and clean with a warm cloth, while machine is cool enough to touch but optimally still warm. Set aside to cool completely.

Once all your twinkies are made and cooling, mix up the filling. You will need to rinse clean the mixer items so that you can use those to now mix the filling. You will also need either a medicine syringe or a pointy frosting tip and a frosting bag… I use a frosting tip with a zip lock bag.

1. Mix together the filling ingredients; butter, powder sugar, marshmallow fluff, and vanilla extract, until smooth.

2. Add in, alternating per Tablespoon, water and oil until the filling is fluffy and light… about 2 Tablespoons each.

3. To make them a Spring collection of twinkies, I took a 1/4 of the frosting and added food coloring to create four different colored fillings. You can leave the filling white and skip food coloring altogether or make all the filling one color.

4. Fill the twinkies by injecting the cakes, using your icing bags, from the underside in three holes. This is going to be one of those times where you have to learn by doing the process. At first, you may find twinkies with not enough filling and some twinkies that get too much filling and actually burst from the sides. LOL The sweet spot is about 1 1/2 teaspoons per hole BUT… you can’t see what’s happening inside. If you feel with the hand squeezing in the filling AND also feel the twinkie expand slightly under your hand, after practice, you will get there. Trust me!

And that’s that. You have twinkies! Store in an airtight container and use within a few days or freeze until needed and defrost before consuming.

ENJOY! xoxo