I love my readers. Truly I do. I am grateful for each and every one of you who stops to read my recipes and look at my photos. I strive to bring you the very best recipes, and to make them simple enough for anyone to make. I don’t like to post a recipe here unless it’s been tested and approved by The Boyfriend and I (tough job, but someone has to do it!).
I think it’s important to post recipes that could use a little work as well. I certainly have learned from others’ mistakes in the past. And with an entire community of food bloggers out there, collaboration will only make a recipe better! So I’d like to tell you about these pumpkin twinkies.
Homemade twinkies are consistently one of the most popular posts on Simple Math Bakery. So I decided to give them an autumn makeover. These pumpkin twinkies taste incredible but I just wasn’t satisfied with the consistency of the chocolate filling. It was packed with chocolate flavor but just a bit too gooey for filling. I had a bit of difficulty piping the filling into the cakes. Perhaps a sturdier chocolate buttercream would work better. Or is there a way in which I could improve upon the chocolate cooked frosting that I used?
Either way, I recommend making these. The pumpkin sponge cake is light and fluffy, with the perfect hint of pumpkin flavor. The cooked chocolate filling is best used if the cakes are to be eaten immediately (as we did), or frozen. I stashed a couple of filled twinkies in the freezer and they were just as tasty after defrosting!
Pumpkin Snack Cakes with Chocolate Filling
Created by Simple Math Bakery
Yield: 8 twinkies
Pumpkin Snack Cakes:
3 eggs, separated
1 cup unbleached cake flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
6 tablespoons cold water
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or vegetable oil)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350°. Spray a canoe pan or muffin tins with cooking spray and set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Add the pumpkin, water, oil, vanilla, and egg yolks, beating until smooth.
Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in 1/3 of the egg whites until the whites are no longer visible. Repeat with each remaining 1/3 of the egg whites.
Fill each well of the canoe pan 2/3 full. Bake for 8-12 minutes, or until the cakes are golden brown and just starting to pull away from the sides of the pan. The twinkies will puff up while baking, but the bottoms will flatten as they cool. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove them gently with a rubber spatula and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely.
*If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice on hand, it’s easy to mix your own! I use 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg, 4 teaspoons ground ginger, and 1 teaspoon ground allspice.
Cooked Chocolate Frosting:
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup milk (I used rice milk)
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 60% chocolate chips)
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Heat the flour and milk over medium heat, stirring constantly. When the mixture thickens and becomes the consistency of paste, stir in the chocolate chips. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and beat until smooth.
Use the pastry filler that comes with the pan (or a pastry bag with round tip) to fill the cakes. Place the tip about halfway into the cake and squeeze gently. Holding the cake in your palm while filling it will allow you to feel when it is full. Fill each cake 3 times to ensure that each bite contains chocolate filling!
As Jeanne knows, I’m a huge fan of Twinkies. However, after sampling bunches of homemade twinkies, I have made the decision that twinkies MUST be homemade. Store-bought can not and will never compare.
Holy crap, this is mindblowing – HOMEMADE TWINKIES! I don’t think there would be much point making these without the proper pan, though.
I agree with Wei-Wei – are you for real??? Homemade Twinkies?? They are awesome (and I bet these won’t look the same in 50 years like “real” Twinkies do!)
Pumpkin Twinkies?? Brilliant!!
You have a twinkie pan. I see that you call it a canoe pan but lets be real, it’s a twinkie pan. How awesome are you?
This looks so good. Shall we deep fry it?
ps. thanks for the lovely words on my blog
xoxo
This is such a creative idea! I haven’t eaten a Twinkie in, oh probably over a two decades, but your homemade pumpkin version sounds delicious
. Great job!
I have this pan! I usually use it to make granola bars, but these look so cute I would love to make these for a party. I can imagine they’d be a huge hit!
Granola bars, that’s a brilliant idea! I hadn’t yet found anything else to use the pan for, but it’s great to have more than one use for it.
Amazing, Jeanne! I just buzzed these on F.B.-they look too good…;)
Now can I please have one of these? And one of those pans? You are such a joy to see and to read. I’m always smiling by the time I get down to the comment section. Thank you for sharing. I hope you are having a wonderful and relaxing Saturday!
I haven’t tasted a Twinky yet, but I think I should keep to home-made ones from the get-go.
I love twinkies!!!! Pumpkin twinkies sound amazing, I know they used to do banana twinkies every now and then….but yours definitely look delicious!
I need to get a twinkie pan!!
Dennis
Pumpkin Twinkies = Brilliant. You know how I love anything that was once a Hostess treat
I love that you posted about a recipe that you didn’t get quite right. It’s always reassuring to hear about other people’s experiences. Maybe one of your readers will have the perfect solution for you!
Oh my. I never thought of making my OWN TWINKIES!
The possibilities are ENDLESS! I need a canoe pan! One more thing added to my Christmas wish list. Have a great Monday (oxymoron?)!
Despite the chocolate filling being not quite right, the Twinkies do look scrumptious! And I like the combination of pumpkin and chocolate flavors!
These look amazing! Love the twinkie baking tins – I have to get one.
You say these are best eaten immediately or frozen. So does this mean they aren’t the kind of item that can be left out for a few days? For example, I can’t store them on the counter for a few days and have them still taste good?
Katherine – I based my recommendation on the fact that this filling was pretty soft, and I’m thinking that the cake might become soggy after a day or so. Unfortunately, this batch didn’t last long enough for me to find out! If you use a stiff buttercream frosting they would probably last for a couple of days on the counter. If you use real butter in the filling, I would still recommend storing the twinkies in the fridge.
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