I must admit, I’ve always felt like a bit of a traitor eating Twinkies. See, I grew up in the central Jersey/Philly region, and that’s Tastykake turf. If you’ve never heard of Tastykake, that just means you live outside the tri-state area — in the old days, the company refused to use preservatives, so their products could only be transported a certain distance before their shelf lives expired. (This is also why I never bought Tastykakes from vending machines, because seriously, who knows how long that shit’s been in there?) But as a kid, you don’t care about supporting local businesses or fighting the power — you care about eating the stuff you see on TV, especially if it’s shilled by Twinkie the Kid. So I ate plenty of Twinkies growing up, both of the regular (mmm) and light (pure, unadulterated taste abortion) varieties. But in all those years, I never had one that strayed from the vanilla creme standard. That’s about to change, as Hostess has released two new limited edition varieties of Twinkie, chocolate creme and strawberry creme. As part of my ongoing quest to never eat a fruit that isn’t apple, we’ll be taking a look at the former.
In contrast to Tastykakes, Twinkies are nothing but preservatives. If you stripped all the preservatives out of a Twinkie, you’d be left with a 1-inch ball of sponge cake. It would not surprise me to learn that these “limited edition” Twinkies were originally created to commemorate America€™s bicentennial; they just ended up with a lot sitting around the warehouse afterward, of which you and I are now the lucky recipients. Not that I care, mind you — no organic food purist I — but I thought it was worth mentioning. Really though, people eat Twinkies for nutritional value the same way they go to Hooters for great food at affordable prices. Let’s just tear into one of these things and see what’s what.
I don’t know if I got a bad batch or if I need to change the prescription on my rose-colored glasses, but the first bite of Twinkie was a huge let-down, and it didn’t improve much from there. Actually, I suspect it has nothing to do with nostalgia or improper packaging and everything to do with the filling. Let’s face it, you can get shitty sponge cake anywhere; what people buy Twinkies for is the creme filling. And as it turns out, there’s a good reason why Hostess uses the vanilla stuff. I had been laboring under the delusion that chocolate makes everything better, but consuming just one chocolate creme Twinkie showed me just how wrong I was. It’s my sad duty to report that while chocolate may make MOST things taste better, Twinkies are a tragic exception. It might just be the flavor combination — I like chocolate creme, I like sponge cake, but put them together and the flavors don’t mesh nearly as well as you’d expect. If a regular Twinkie is more than the sum of its parts, the chocolate creme Twinkie has to be considered far less.
That wasn’t my only beef… joking aside, these Twinkies might indeed have been produced during the Ford administration for how the sponge cake tasted. I remember Twinkies from my youth being soft and moist, but these were tougher — not totally stale, but on their way — and kind of dry. In fact, I’m pretty sure that even if these had had vanilla creme inside them, I still would’ve paused after the first bite to wonder if they’ve changed the way they make Twinkies in the last decade. If so, I urge Hostess to follow Pepsi’s lead — I want my Twinkies Throwback.
It’s a sad day for any of us when the cherished bits of our childhood are retooled to be more edgy or to have more mass appeal, only to end up sucking harder than letting your wife control the TV. (We meet again, One Tree Hill.) We’ve seen it happen with the Transformers and G.I. Joe, with Star Wars, with New Coke. Fortunately chocolate creme Twinkies are only limited edition, and Hostess has no plans to phase out the regular variety. That’s good news, and if I were you, I’d stick with the classic. Points for trying something different, but if you’re going to be ingesting that amount of sugar and carbs, you want it to be worth your while.
(Nutrition Facts — 1 cake — 160 calories, 5 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 220 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 19 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)
Item: Limited Edition Hostess Chocolate Creme Twinkies
Price: $3.99
Size: 8 cakes
Purchased at: Acme
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Tripping nostalgic. Being able to keep food on the shelf for longer than a week. Twinkie the Kid. Trying something new.
Cons: Bicentennial Twinkies. Finding out chocolate doesn’t make everything better. Dry sponge cake. The Transformers movies. “Something new” tasting gross. Brown filling in a Twinkie just looks… wrong.
They should’ve made the cake chocolate too. But, at least this Twinkie will give state fair deep fryers a new Twinkie to deep fry.
I think they have changed the recipe… had to take the trans fats out, which makes everything drier.
I am from the Philly burbs but now live in KY. My mom sent Tastykakes (and peanut chews!) for Christmas. I feel spoiled. These Twinkies look awful! I agree that Twinkies are nothing like they used to be- once soft and tasty and now hard and chemical-ly(?). Sad.
Ive only ever tried Twinkies once when I went to the States as I see them all the time on television, was slightly let down by what I was met with 🙁 tasted very artificial snif :(. These chocolate limited edition ones look interesting..shame you werent a fan!
I know you didn’t like them – but I STILL really want to try them!!! Bet these never make there way over to British shores though.
Tell you what, Cinabar – you pay for shipping and the three I’ve got left are yours. 😉
That’s disgusting…looks like someone took an “upper-decker” inside a Twinkie. o_O
The pictures just look gross, I’m afraid. Including the picture on the box. “This is Doctor Twinkie, and I’m a-ridin’ your colon!”
I was born and raised in central NJ and had no idea until just now that Tastykake was a regional product. It’s so prevalent here, that I just assumed it was a national company like Hostess. Also, that chocolate filling looks very unappetizing.
Devika: It’s like when west coasters talk about Double Doubles. I understand on a conceptual level that it’s something delicious, but I have no idea what the hell it really means.
I tried the strawberry & it actually wasn’t that bad, of course it wasnt as good as the original but these remakes rarely are.
Hostess also has new chocolate & strawberry cupcakes, havent tried them yet though.
$4 seems like alot for something that is almost guaranteed to suck, especially when you live alone & dont have any family to eat them so they dont go too waste.
Twinkles are so chock full of preservatives that they last forever though. I imagine Twinkies are what preservatives taste like. Sweet, yummy preservatives…
easy, invite the neighborhood children over too your house with the promise of putting something tastey in their mouth with a delicious creme filling.
be sure too tell them “it’s our little secret” so their parents don’t get mad you gave them sweets.
good idea? yes or no
That’s not chocolate inside. Whatever is that light in colour and looks that greasy cannot be chocolate. It’s a mixture of oil or butter and sugar. And a little cocoa powder. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that if a chocolate filling has that colour, I’d better stay away from it, because it tastes like crap.
I lost weight while still enjoying my Chocolate Cake Twinkie, they changed and i don’t buy them anymore. i Miss my Chocolate cake Twinkies. R.I.P. Yummy Twinkies
I just bought some chocolate creme Twinkies yesterday, I love them! I bought them because I can’t say no to Twinkies, but didn’t really expect them to be good. What a great surprise! I LOVE them! You must have gotten a bad batch, the box I got was fabulous! Love them!
They sell ’em on Amazon!
Hey, just found you through Google cause I had to know what The Internet thought of these (congratulations, you are now The Internet). Holy hell these things are vile. I saw them at the corner store and just had to try it out of morbid curiosity, even thought I pretty much already hate OG Twinkies. Took one bite of this and almost had to spit it up. Tossed the rest of it straight into the garbage.
Tried one today. Spit it out almost immediately. Yeah, it was that disgusting.
Thanks for the review. I also used to think chocolate made everything better, until I tried a chocolate Cinnabon. I felt the same way trying that as you did with the Twinkie.
I tried the chocolate twinkies the last time they were out. The filling kind of tastes….brown. They didn’t really taste like chocolate to me. I’m always disappointed in the banana ones too. I’m a sucker for anything banana flavored, but the filling didn’t have enough banana flavor to really make a difference.
They tasted reel yucky im so mad i threw the whole box away.i like regular twinky better