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The Amazing Twinkie: The Little Snack Cake That Could



Twinkies are one of the most popular snack cakes in America. Invented in 1930 in suburban Chicago, the Twinkie has enjoyed worldwide popularity and is still going strong today.

The Twinkie was invented by James Dewar, a bakery manager at the Continental Baking Company in River Forest. Dewar wanted to find a use for the machines that made strawberry shortcakes that were dormant when strawberries weren’t in season. He made banana cream-filled cakes because bananas were plentiful year-round. The name Twinkie was inspired by a billboard that Dewar saw for Twinkle Toe Shoes. A pack of two Twinkies cost only a nickel, which helped their popularity since it was the Great Depression. The Twinkie soon took off.  

In the 1940s, production using bananas was affected by World War II rationing, so the company instead used vanilla cream for Twinkie filling. It became popular, so they stuck with it. The Continental Baking Company was eventually purchased by Hostess, and production moved to a Schiller Park factory. The rest is history. Twinkies were made in Schiller Park until the factory closed in 2014. DeWar was known to say that he would eat at least three Twinkies with milk every night before bed. He lived to be 88.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton included a Twinkie in the White House's National Millennium Time Capsule.
In 2012, Time magazine named the Twinkie number 1 in its list of iconic junk foods.

Hostess filed for bankruptcy in 2012, temporarily ceasing all Twinkie production. But a private equity firm soon came to the rescue, and Twinkies found their way back to store shelves in 2013.

A common myth is that Twinkies never expire and can even survive nuclear war. Twinkies actually have a shelf life of about 45 days, which is still considerably longer than most baked goods. The air-tight cellophane wrapper has a lot to do with this.

About 500 million Twinkies are sold each year. Banana Twinkies, a throwback to the Twinkie's origins, can be purchased on the the Hostess website. Today, Twinkies are made in Emporia, Kansas. Internationally, Twinkies are made in Canada, Mexico, Egypt, and China.

And yes, you can make your own Twinkies at home, with the help of a cream canoe baking pan and a cream injector, available for sale here. The shelf life of homemade Twinkies is much shorter than 45 days and they're not suitable to be placed in a time capsule, but that's OK because they will be eaten up quickly.

Homemade Twinkies
*Makes 8 Twinkies

Ingredients:
1 box Betty Crocker Super Moist Yellow Cake Mix (13.25 oz.)
1 c. water
1/3 c. vegetable oil
3 eggs
cooking spray
1 7.5 oz. jar Marshmallow Fluff

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray cream canoe pan with cooking spray.
2. Mix cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a large bowl with mixer on medium speed or beat vigorously by hand for 2 minutes.
3. Fill each Twinkie cavity in the pan about 2/3 full. It helps to do this using a greased ice cream scooper, using about 2 1/2 scoops of batter for each cavity. You will not use all the batter.
4. Bake Twinkies for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of one comes out clean. Cool for about 10 minutes before removing Twinkies from pan and then let cool completely.
5. Slice off excess cake from the bottom of each Twinkie, so that the bottom is flat.
6. Fill your cream injector with Marshmallow Fluff.
7. To fill each Twinkie, first turn upside down. Poke three evenly spaced holes through the bottom of the Twinkie with a chopstick, wiggling the chopstick around a bit as you do this to make room for the cream. Place the cream injector into each hole and release the filling, using about 2-3 pumps per hole.

Sources:
Clint Cargile, “This Week in Illinois History: Birth of the Twinkie,” Northern Public Radio (April 5, 2021).
Courtney Iseman, "The Odd Inspiration Behind the Twinkie's Name," Mashed (April 24, 2021).
“The History of the Twinkie,” Kitchen Project.
“James Dewar,” Oak Park River Forest Museum.
Alessandra Bulow, "How Twinkies Are Made and More Fun Facts About the Iconic Snack Cakes," Today (November 9, 2018).
Bethany Moncel, “The History of Twinkies,” The Spruce Eats (October 2, 2019).
Bethany Moncel, "The Twinkie Myth, " The Spruce Eats (October 2, 2019).
Michael Bartiromo, “The Original Twinkie Wasn’t ‘Plain,’ But a Different Flavor Entirely,” WGN (June 19, 2023). 
“Twinkie,” Wikipedia.

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