Homemade Twinkies

I bought this Twinkies bake set during a recent holiday to America. My kids really loved the shop bought Twinkies and we knew we could not get them here in Australia, so when I saw this bake set I just knew I had to buy it and attempt these delicious spongy treats back home. I am hoping to make various seasonal flavours, mint and candy cane for Christmas, pumpkin for Halloween etc.

They recipe was easy to follow and simple to make the only thing I seemed to have some trouble with was filling them, I just could not get them filled with the piping nozzle that was supplied so I am going to have to come up with another way of filling them.

For best results, have all ingredients at room temperature

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups plain flour
1 Tsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp salt
110 g butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
2 Tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk

Method

1.  Preheat oven to 175° C. Generously coat the Twinkies pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2.  Sift flour, baking powder and salt over a large piece of baking parchment. 

3.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in the eggs, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Reduce speed to low and scrape sides of bowl. Pour in milk and continue mixing until smooth.

4.  Pick up the paper with the dry ingredients and gradually pour into the wet ingredients. Continue to mix until just blended. Do not over mix. 

5.  Spoon batter evenly into the pan, filling each oval about 3/4 full. Bake for 15 minutes or until cake tops spring back to the touch or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cakes should not be too golden in colour. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert pan onto rack; gently tap the bottom of pan and lift it off. Transfer cakes to a cooling rack and cool completely before filling or frosting.

Cake Fillings -

Vanilla Cream

3 cups Icing sugar

1 cup unsalted butter

1 Tsp vanilla extract

1-2 Tbsp whipping cream

Whisk together the sugar and butter until thoroughly combined. Next, while consistently mixing the ingredients add the vanilla extract and cream. Continue to whisk for 1 more minute, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency.

Marshmallow Fluff

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup Icing sugar

1 cup marshmallow creme

1 Tsp vanilla extract

In a medium bowl beat butter and remaining ingredients until light and fluffy.

(This was the filling I tried but found it much too thick to pipe, I even added some milk to thin it out a bit, I might try the one above next time)

Instructions for filling cakes

The pastry bag came with a nozzle to insert into cakes and fill them; Fill pastry bag with filling and carefully squeeze about 1 Tbsp in three locations into the underside of each mini cake. You can also use jams, mousse, pudding or pie fillings for variation.

These can be made in individual mini loaf tins, or any mini cake tins.

 They obviously won't have the Twinkies shape but they will taste like Twinkies.