What Are Twinkies?

Twinkies are a mix of sugar and creamy goodness in a small hand sized personal sponge cake.  The exact ingredients are listed below.  If you would like to find Twinkies in your area, please use our online Twinkies Locator Map.

What are Twinkies?

Twinkies are made in America by Hostess Brands. 
They are marketed as ” A Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling”.

Because Twinkies are not made with eggs or other unstabilized dairy products they have a much longer shelf life than many other bakery goods.  Twinkies can easily last 25 Days or more without significant hardening or loss of freshness.

Twinkies are a bit of Americana.  Comic books carried full page advertisements starring all the most popular cartoon characters causing Twinkies to become engrained into the minds of American children.

Twinkies are sold in convenience stores, gas stations, grocery stores, ball games, vending machines, etc.  There are also recipes containing Twinkies (such as Twinkie Tiramisu and Deep Fried Twinkies) served at fairs and in restaurants.

  • Ingredients:
  • Enriched Wheat Flour (enriched with ferrous sulfate (iron),
  • B vitamins (niacin, thiamine mononitrate [B1], riboflavin [B2] and folic acid))
  • Sugar
  • Corn syrup
  • Water
  • High fructose corn syrup
  • Vegetable and/or animal shortening (containing one or more of partially hydrogenated
  • soybean, cottonseed or canola oil, and beef fat)
  • Dextrose
  • Whole eggs
  • –2% or less of:
  • Modified corn starch
  • Cellulose gum
  • Whey
  • Leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate)
  • Salt
  • Cornstarch
  • Corn flour
  • Corn syrup solids
  • Mono and diglycerides
  • Soy lecithin
  • Polysorbate 60
  • Dextrin
  • Calcium caseinate
  • Sodium stearol lactylate
  • Wheat gluten
  • Calcium sulfate
  • Natural and artificial flavors
  • Caramel color
  • Sorbic acid (to retain freshness)
  • Artificial color (yellow 5, red 40)

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It is possible for you to make your own copycat Twinkie clones and also healthy vegan Twinkies containing healthy alternatives… but of course those will never be as good as the REAL thing : )