Review: The Twinkies Cookbook by Hostess!

Title: The Twinkies Cookbook, Twinkies 85th Anniversary Edition: A New Sweet and Savory Recipe Collection from America's Most Iconic Snack Cake
Author: Hostess
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: July 14th 2015
Source: Ten Speed Press


Book Description via Goodreads:

A comeback cookbook for the perennially popular snack cake, with 50 unique sweet and savory recipes that highlight the whimsical nostalgia of America's favorite dessert.

For more than 80 years, Twinkies have captivated the cravings of Americans both young and old. The Twinkies Cookbook, Second Edition explores the snack cake's heritage in the United States while celebrating its popularity in recipes for snacks both sweet and savory. For the first edition, Hostess urged Twinkie-aficionados across the nation to submit their favorite dishes featuring the cream-filled sponge cake. This new edition compiles the best of these colorful concoctions with 25 new recipes and additional photography. From a Twinkie-filled take on chicken and waffles to Twinkie pumpkin pie, these surprising and innovative recipes are a small slice of Americana that will be a hit with Twinkies fans across the country.

Review:

★★

Like almost any other American, I love me some Twinkies! I was heartbroken when Hostess went away, and I'm so excited that all the products that we have come to know and love as a nation have come back! (Well, almost all. One day, they will bring back my beloved Apple Spice Cupcakes. I digress.) I also love to bake, so I was really excited to get my hands on this book.

First, the good. This book is divided into easy-to-search sections: Cake, Pie, Fruit, Chocolate, Cream, Meat, and Novelty. The book also starts out with a really nice history about the Hostess company and how it started, flourished, and came back after it had closed down. It was really interesting to learn about all this, because it wasn't something that I was familiar with. I also appreciated that the recipes included in this cookbook were submissions taken from fans of Twinkies. There's a fair amount of photos, but there aren't photos for every creation.

Unfortunately, because these are submissions, the recipes were really, really hit or miss for me. Some steps were really well explained, others weren't. Most of them weren't very homemade, calling for recipes such as a box of cake mix or instant pudding. In addition, some of the recipes were pretty basic. Some examples of this include kebabs, which is just chunked Twinkies and some fruit and Twinkie burritos, which involves a snack cake and a tortilla. I was expecting some more creative uses for Twinkies, and I felt that for most of these recipes, I didn't need a recipe or would never use it anyway.

That said, there is a Ribbon and Bows Twinkie Wedding Cake that is absolutely gorgeous, and props to the person who came up with it. I definitely never would have thought of that!

Some of the recipes that I'd definitely love to try include No Bake Twinkie Pumpkin Pie, Twinkie Berry Forest Ice Cream, and Deep-Fried Bacon-Wrapped Chocolate-Covered Twinkies. I mean, it's Twinkies, bacon, chocolate, and fried all in one. How can you go wrong?

I'd recommend this maybe for those who throw a lot of kids parties/room moms because a lot of these are pretty quick to make, but look really cute. If you're looking for a bit more complicated recipes, this isn't the right book for you. Overall, I think I'd keep it on a shelf if I had gotten it as some sort of mail-in prize or promotional contest or something from Hostess, but I wouldn't buy it myself.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.