Making homemade twinkies involved revisiting an old nemesis. You see, I wanted these treats to be shortening free. I needed a filling that would be creamy and thick. After looking at a lot of copycat recipes floating around the internet, I realized with a sag of my shoulders, that I was going to have to use Continental Frosting. Have you heard of it? I suppose it has been around forever and is actually an old fashioned form of icing/filling. I hadn’t tried it before last Christmas, however, and the version I tried failed…miserably. I have come to realize, though, that it was the recipe I used had faulty instructions. I compared as many recipes as I could to the one I had and all of them stood together against the hand written recipe in my kitchen. It turned out much better this time around.
I also had to search high and low for a sponge cake recipe that didn’t call for 7-9 eggs, separated. I had 2 egg whites in a bowl in my fridge from the butterscotch pie I had made earlier in the week (I wonder if I took any pictures of that…it was gone in one sitting) Anyway, I was feeling lazy and wanted to use what I had. I finally found a “Quick Sponge Cake” on Cooks.com that worked.
1. Info for Homemade Twinkies
- Cook Time: 1 hr 10 mins
- Total Time: 1 hr 40 mins
- Servings: 8
- Calories: 144Kcal
2. Ingredients for Homemade Twinkies
- for the cake: (from Cooks.com)
- 2 eggs (or 1 egg and 2 egg whites)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 cup cake flour (or ¾ cup AP flour with ¼ cup cornstarch)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- For the filling (Continental Frosting):
- 3 Tbsp AP flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 stick butter
3. Directions:
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until they are the palest yellow and very frothy.
- Add the sugar and mix another 2 minutes until smooth and creamy looking.
- In a microwave safe container, nuke the milk for a minute
- or until bubbly.
- Add the butter and vanilla and let the milk sit while the butter melts.
- Add the milk mixture to the sugar mixture.
- Combine the flour and powder thoroughly in a little bowl and add to the batter and beat another minute.
- Spoon into either a prepared twinkie pan or homemade twinkie forms made out of foil.
- Bake the twinkies at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the foil forms and let cool on a wire rack.
- For the filling, in a saucepan, combine the flour and milk with a whisk.
- Heat and stir until it thickens to the consistency of pudding.
- Remove from heat and stir in the salt and vanilla.
- Place plastic wrap or waxed paper directly on the thick flour mixture and let it cool completely.
- In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
- Beat in the cooled down flour mixture.
- Keep in the fridge until ready to use to fill the twinkies.
- Place the filling in a pastry bag with a plain tip.
- Gently squirt the filling into three places in the bottom of each cake.
- You can try making a hole first with a straw or chopstick.
- Don’t fill too much or the sides will burst.