(Photo courtesy of Joy the Baker)

So recently, I celebrated the birthday of a friend by packing up some specially-selected picnic items and watching a screening of Ghostbusters in Brooklyn Bridge Park.  By specially-selected, I mean that all the food had some relation to the movie; and I went with the theme of Egon’s favorite junk food: Cheez-Its, Crunch bars, and, of course, the Twinkie.

But despite purchasing the Cheez-Its and Crunch bars as is, I couldn’t bring myself to buy the Hostess version of these portable cakes, so I did some Internet research on the top homemade Twinkie recipes.

There were many to be found, so I narrowed it down to the cake-and-filling combo that I thought sounded best: Joy the Baker’s sponge cake and a filling recipe that was part of Instructables’ Homemade Twinkie Challenge.  With so many recipes to pick from, it was a shot in the dark—but this combination hit the flavor target dead-on.

And, because this was truly a DIY experience, I ended up using Todd Wilbur’s suggestion for making homemade Twinkie molds out of heavy duty aluminum foil.  (There are fancy gadgets available for those of you who are lazy and/or are going to be making these Twinkies once or twice a week, but the individual foil pan version worked fine for me—and I didn’t even have heavy duty foil to use!  Apparently regular works fine, too.)

Here are my personal recipe winners!  Enjoy.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKES:
2 c. all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
10 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. whole milk

INGREDIENTS FOR FILLING:
1/4 c. non-hydrogenated shortening
1/4 c. margarine
1 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Make the cakes: Place rack in center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Spray molds/pan with non-stick spray.  (The recipe yields 12 cakes, so mold and spray accordingly.)

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  Set aside.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute in between each addition.  Beat in vanilla extract.  Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture alternately with the milk in 3 batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and beating until just incorporated.

Divide the batter between the prepared molds.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, or until the cakes are just slightly golden and a tester inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Make the filling: Beat together the shortening and margarine. Add the powdered sugar and beat until completely light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.

Fill the cakes: Fill a pastry bag with the cream filling and, using a medium-sized plain round tip, poke 3 holes in the flat side of the cake and fill until the cream just starts to explode from the cake.  (This is hard to judge, and the first few cakes I filled were definitely lacking in their full cream capacity; so, my recommendation: err on the side of more.)