Ok, I will admit it. I am guilty of buying a gift for my son that I really wanted for myself, a Hostess Twinkies Maker. While picking up a few things at Walgreen’s last month, I spotted a bright blue and red box with the iconic logo and thought, wow, I my son would love a Twinkie maker for Christmas. I rationalized that it would be a great kitchen project for him and my daughter. Excited, I bought it, wrapped it and placed it under our tree.
Today as my kids were fighting over their Christmas toys, I decided to test out the Twinkie Maker and use it as a distraction from their arguing. It worked! As my daughter sat and watched cartoons, my son and I got busy in the kitchen and whipped up the batter according to the recipe from the included instruction booklet.
As I took the Twinkie Maker out of the box, I was impressed with its compactness and sleek design.
I prepared the batter while my assistant handed me the necessary ingredients.
Once the batter was ready, I oiled each of the pastry wells of Twinkie Maker with vegetable oil (after washing it) and then plugged it in to prepare for baking.
My son and I filled each well about 3/4 of the way with the batter and then closed the lid of the appliance and allowed the Twinkies to cook for about 5 minutes.
To ensure that the Twinkies were done, we tested with a toothpick. The first batch came out really light but the next two batches came out more of a golden color, like the store-bought Twinkies.
While the Twinkies were cooling, I prepared the Vanilla Cream filling and then used a pastry bag to inject the cream into three locations on the underside of each Twinkie. I let my son fill a few and he had a blast. We had filling everywhere but as they say, a messy kitchen is a happy kitchen!
The included pastry bag began to tear as we were finishing, so the next time I make these I will use a better quality bag.
My son was anxious to eat a Twinkie so I let him be the official taste tester. Needless to say, he loved them and asked for seconds.
The kids had a friend over, so the three of them enjoyed a Twinkie with a smile.
I am very happy with my purchase and look forward to tweaking the recipe a bit and experimenting with some of my own ideas, such as Nutella Twinkies. This makes a great gift for the food lover in your life and is super easy to clean. I think I paid $15 for the Twinkie Maker and see many more batches of Twinkies in our future. Here is the recipe that comes with the package:
Ingredients
Ingredients