Hostess Twinkie Sponge Cake

This did not work for me. I used the almond extract option in the recipe. I also investigated how to make scalded milk properly and thought I had done so. I did not realize until the cake was done that this recipe does not include the filling shown in the photo. So, I made Max's Twinkie Filling (copycat) at the last minute and luckily had all the ingredients and have reviewed separately. With all of that, the cake seemed fine until I went to cut into it at an event. I had to work the knife to get it through and it would not separate into pieces easily. I knew then it did not have the sponge cake consistency I was looking for. About half of this finished product was thrown away, it did not work for us.

NorthwestGal recommended this recipe to me & when I looked at it I was so surprised! I can't say that I have made this exact recipe, but I can help shed some light on it's origin & say that I have made it's later version, also by Gloria. I saw Gloria Pitzer for the first time on the Phil Donahue show on April 8, 1993. I immediately called & ordered the original transcript of the show. (No Tivo back then! LOL) Gloria Pitzer, the original recipe detective, had been "cloning" recipes for 20 years but got her real jump start when she was working at a newspaper that decided to add a food page. The first letter she opened asked, "How do they make that special sauce at McDonald's?" She went home & made & remade until she had a sauce that mimicked the Big Mac's special sauce. After that she branced out into KFC, Wendy's Frosty & Chili, Oreo cookies and Hostess Twinkies. But, after only 6 weeks doing the new food page for the paper she lost her job because one of her clone recipes (Share A Lease cheesecake) "stepped on the toes of a famous cheescake company that was also a sponsor of the paper". She made up new names for her copycat recipes, like Wednesday's chili (I have that posted here Recipe #21936), Gloreo Cookies (love that recipe!), Big Bucket in the Sky Chicken, Big Match special sauce & Hopeless Twinkles. She first appeared on the Donahue show in July of 1981 and within 90 days the Donahue show received over one million letters about her episode. She appeared again 12 years later, in 1993, when I was lucky enough to be watching with my newborn son. After comparing this recipe with the one I've made from the 1993 transcript I see she did alter the recipe quite a bit. She made them on the 1981 episode and again with her new version in 1993. I've made the newest version from my transcript. I look forward to trying this one as well. :) Thanks for posting it, Max!

My 10 year-old daughter really enjoyed helping me make these. I also made recipe #356895, which I used to make Twinkie snack cakes for my kids' school lunches. The sponge cake itself was pretty good, though it didn't really taste like the real Twinkies. But they were still a very tasty treat that was a lot of fun to make. I used vanilla extract, and I think the sponge cake would have been better if I had used almond extract instead. Thanks for posting the recipe, Max. Made for 2009 Spring Pick-A-Chef.