Until now.
My girlfriends and I have been going to St Gertrude’s for retreat for six years now. We have a system down. We bring plenty of snacks to tide us over between meals with the Sisters. We bring plenty of wine to ensure juicy conversations and some whiskey for a change of pace if we tire of the wine. We bring more than enough yarn and fiber for a year’s worth of knitting and spinning. And we bring birthday cake for Laura.
Laura’s birthday doesn’t always fall exactly during retreat but it’s when we always celebrate it. Her birthday cakes have included flourless chocolate tortes and seven-layer cake. One year she got a cake with powdered sugar for decoration (spoiler and warning: this is not a good way to decorate birthday cake). I don’t remember what the cake was. I can only recall the cloud of sugar that flew off it as she blew out the candles (we still giggle about this, in fact, I can’t help giggling as I type).
This year she got junk food. Not just any kind of junk food, homemade junk food. Twinkies and Hostess Cupcakes to be specific, although I’m sure I can’t call them that, Hostess might sue me.
I’d wanted to make homemade Twinkies for years. I was inspired by Michael Pollan and his book “Food Rules”. One of his rules is “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself”, and Grist.org had published a recipe for organic Twinkies soon after his book came out. Considering the book came out two years ago, I’d been stewing over this recipe for quite some time. I just needed the right excuse to make them.
When my dear friend and fellow birthday cake baker, Rochelle, called to figure out what we were making Laura for her birthday this year, and suggested that she might like to make a Hostess Cupcake knock off, I had found my excuse. What could be better than an assortment of organic homemade junk food for a birthday celebration?
It was not until this point that I actually looked at the recipe.
There is a reason that Michael Pollan advocates only eating junk food you make yourself. It’s hard to make junk food. It’s not something you’d do everyday. You’d really have to crave a Twinkie and have a bunch of free time on your hands before you would endeavor to make them. You would not blindly eat them without a thought to what they contain or how they are made. You would have to plan.
And plan I did.
First, I had to construct some Twinkie pans. Somewhere in foodie-land there are pre-made Twinkie pans but I wasn’t planning on making Twinkies a part of my regular baking schedule so, rather than add another pan that I only used once to my collection, I made them out of aluminum foil.
This takes some time and practice. None of the sixteen little tin boats I made were the same size or shape but they would have to do.
Once I had my pans all lined up and ready to go, I had to figure out how to construct the Twinkies so I would have time to make them in my busy schedule and that they wouldn’t be stale or soggy when I got down to Cottonwood.
I decided to make the cream filling first. It turned out to be so delicious that I had to swat both my hand and my husband’s away from the bowl to make sure there’d be enough filling. I refrigerated it under lock and key for a day.
The following day (the day before I left) I made the sponge cake. These were relatively easy. They puffed up beautifully in the oven and looked vaguely like the real thing when they came out of the pan. They did shrink an alarming amount and I wasn’t sure how all that filling was going to fit. I needn’t have worried. Getting the filling in was half the fun.
Right before I headed south, I filled my pastry bag and went for it. Those shrunken cakes puffed back up when I squeezed the filling in. This did take some practice and I did have to lick a lot of filling off my hands as I got the hang of it, but it was all worth it.
As Rochelle and I presented our organic junk food to the oohs and aahs of our friends (confident in the fact that we could identify and pronounce every ingredient in them) I knew all the hard work was worth it. They tasted so much better than their shelf stable counterparts. We savored every bite. And then I began wondering if I could make pink Snoballs for next year.
Organic Twinkies
adopted from Grist.org
makes 6-8 cakes depending on the size of your homemade pans
Sponge Cake:
3 organic eggs, separated
1/3 c. organic sugar
1/3 c. organic unbleached flour
½ t baking powder
½ t organic vanilla extract
Cream Filling:
4 oz. Mascarpone cheese
1 vanilla bean
3 organic egg whites
2/3 c. organic sugar
Make 8 Twinkie shaped boats out of aluminum foil. Butter and flour the pans and set aside in a baking dish that they fit snuggly in.
Preheat the oven to 325 F.
Make the sponge cake:
Beat the 3 egg yolks on medium speed in a stand mixer. Add the 1/3 c of sugar slowly to the yolks and beat for 5 minutes or until the mixture is thick and light colored. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form medium soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk-sugar mixture. Mix the flour and baking powder together. Sift the flour mixture into the egg mixture and fold it in carefully to just incorporate. Fold in the vanilla extract.
Divide the batter among the Twinkie pans. They should be half full and, depending on how big you made them, you may only have enough batter for 6 or 7.
Bake the cakes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Remove from the pans and let cool completely. Depending on how well you greased the pans you may need to run a sharp knife around the edge to loosen the cake. The cakes will deflate quite a bit as they cool
Meanwhile, make the cream filling:
Combine the cheese and the seeds scraped from the inside of the vanilla bean in a small bowl until smooth.
Combine the egg whites and sugar in the top of a double boiler. Whisk the mixture continuously over simmering water until it reaches 110 F, about 2-3 minutes.
Place the egg white mixture in a standing mixer and beat with a whisk attachment until it has doubled in volume, about 5-7 minutes. The mixture should be glossy and hold a soft peak. Add the cheese mixture and beat until just combined and smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until ready to use.
To assemble:
Place the filling mixture into a pastry bag with a medium plain tip. Make three holes in the bottom of each cake using either a straw or skewer. The holes should go about half way into the cake. Be careful not to puncture the top.
Insert the pastry bag tip and squeeze filling into each hole. The cake will re-expand with the filling. If it is hard to squeeze the filling in, try making the holes slightly bigger or try moving the tip around until you find a void to fill.
Once the Twinkie is filled, turn it over and serve.
