A Healthy Twinkie

I tried to think of the worst possible thing I could make good when it came to our theme for this week: Bad Things Gone Good. Lots of foods came to mind. Things like hot dogs (I wasn’t going there), crumb cake (why bother making that healthy?) and french fries (Ceri beat me to the punch!) so I came up with the Twinkie. How wonderfully evil it is. Not that a Twinkie tastes bad. It’s actually delicious in all its processed yumminess. However, in the pecking order of treats that are healthy for your kids, this would be at the bottom. Sorry Hostess. You know I love you and your Ding Dongs. (I don’t like the way that sounds.)  My issue was how in the hell was I going to make a Twinkie healthy? Well, folks, I did. I was so friggin proud of myself I could barely contain my excitement. However, I got no gratitude for my family, especially my husband. This is a man who confessed to having had a Ho Ho a day ago (Is he 10?) and believes, like Texas, you don’t mess with Hostess. Scarlett had never had a Twinkie so she didn’t understand all my fuss. She just wanted to lick the bowl of the whip cream. 

I found numerous attempts on-line to replicate the infamous treat at home but none that tried to clean up its act in terms of healthiness. What I did learn from a few sites like www.joythebaker.com and www.canyoustayfordinner.com was a great alternative to a mini loaves baking pan that most people don’t have-a homemade version using foil and replicates the Twinkie tube shape. I used my mini-loaf pan from Loblaws but also made a foil pan for you to follow.

Cut a square of foil and grab a spice container.

Fold. Keep edges outside.

Spray with cooking spray.

I used a yellow cake recipe that I had to modify in order to remove the white floor and cut down on the butter and sugar. As a result, I lost the trademark “yellow” cake appearance of my Twinkie. For you Twinkie purists (I’m looking at you, honey!), get over it. At least you’re eating cake with whipped cream. A lot of other homemade recipes had marshmallow or sweeter middle concoctions but I decided to keep it simple. Whip cream is rich enough without other things added into it.

Use the pointy edge of a kitchen tool to poke three holes into cakes. Once inserted, wind the instrument around to burrow a tiny space for cream to sit. Be careful not to poke too far down and split the cake.

Place whip cream into pastry bag or ziplock bag with the corner snipped off (keep it small) and pipe cream into holes.

Like I said, my husband was lackluster about my  Twinkie version. However, he did say the cake tasted great. Scarlett loved it too. However, she didn’t need the cream piped in. She told me to just wipe it on top. I, on the otherhand, ate two in one shot and, unlike Twinkies, I could have cared less.