What are Hostess Birthday CupCakes?
Hostess celebrates its centennial with a limited edition themed version of its iconic cupcake in a birthday variety. It’s a frosted speckled yellow cake with creamy filling complete with Hostess’ signature squiggle and tons of rainbow colored sprinkles.
How are they?
In some of my past reviews I have sometimes decreed something as a sugar bomb, but I need to rethink my definition because these things take the cake (and yes pun intended, of course). Between the squiggle, the sprinkles, the icing, and the cream on the inside, these were hard to eat and to be honest I had trouble finishing just one.
If there was more cake a la a regular Twinkie or a different flavor going on to break it all up, it wouldn’t be so bad. But sadly it’s just sugar on top of sugar on top of more sugar filled with sugar that overall tastes like sugar.
To be fair, I guess that’s what a tried a true birthday cake is but again with not enough of the cake part and in such a compact form it comes together as disappointing. The biggest offender though is the icing which has a little bit of vanilla flavor but is on the harder side and overall seems sort of stale. It reminds me of fondant which isn’t known to be delicious, but it makes up for it because it’s used to create insanely decorated cake masterpieces, of which these are not.
Is there anything else you need to know?
It’s not all birthday tears as there are some positives since the cake is sufficiently moist and Hostess didn’t skimp on the sprinkles, which are full size and represent every color of the rainbow.
Also, here’s some fun history about Hostess: Did you know the its cupcake was the first commercially produced one and it may have been the first snack cake ever introduced to the market? Although, rival Tastykake refutes this.
Conclusion:
I love snack cakes, birthday things, and all things Hostess, but these are not that good unless you have an extreme sweet tooth as they’re pretty one-note taste-wise. They’re festive with the colorful adornments, but it’s nothing mind-blowing (hello, Funfetti) that you need to see in person like those cool slime Ghostbusters Twinkies from years’ past.
If you want to celebrate Hostess’ birthday, pick up the O.G. chocolate ones and hum happy birthday as you indulge. There’s a reason they’ve lasted a century.
Purchased Price: $2.97
Size: 13.1 oz. box/8 count
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 3 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cake) 190 calories, 9 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 23 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.