Kotas Reviews Twinkies Cereal

Man, I don't know what is up with this new ad campaign from a crap beer is all about, but people are going nuts! Closing schools, shutting down businesses, I'm work from HOME now...I mean, all because of the "Corona, Buy Us" ad campaign? Sure, it's a little over the top but I just don't see why...wait, what? It's not an ad campaign? Virus? Huh.

Well, nevermind! The outside world is a godless hellscape littered with empty toilet paper rolls and empty hand sanitizer bottles, and I'm crouched in what passes for my home office trying to make sure that people can upload documents to a server. Also, Corona Beer still sucks! But we're not here to talk about that today. Today we have something very special for all of you stuck at home craving entertainment and some form of social contact (Which is tough titty for you, because DON'T FUCKIN' LEAVE YOUR HOUSE). Yes, the first official cereal of the apocalypse has arrived, and of course, it's Twinkie based. Ladies, Gentlemen, War Boys and Girls of all ages, let's take a long hard look at Twinkies Cereal.

Rule #1: Cardio

Not since Ice Cream Cones cereal has a product been less suited as a breakfast been placed on our soon to be empty store shelves. I mean, I've not shied away from many an unusual breakfast, such as: pizza, leftover pad thai, half a hamburger, an assortment of scraps from a veggie tray, and so forth, but never in all my days have snack cakes been a part of breakfast...UNTIL NOW.

The packaging basically looks like a Twinkie box, only with a bowl full of Twinkies Cereal (apparently being forcefully injected into the bowl, by the milk splash) the the arc of Post in green above it. That green really clashes with the rest of the aesthetic, in my opinion. Still, it gets the point across. Let's pour us some.

Cereal or packing material? #WhyNotBoth

Yeah, that looks like a bowl full of tiny Twinkies, it does. The smell is "super sweet vanilla and a hint of corn". The taste is...well, it is very very sweet. Like, super sweet. Sickeningly sweet. Very vanilla too, and the cereal pieces themselves are quite crunchy, even after a prolonged dunk in milk. There's just something very...off about the flavor for me. It's not terrible, but I find it off putting. Now, all snack cakes tend to have a bit of chemical-ish flavors to them, but this is that flavor severely ramped up. Maybe I can only taste it because I am now considered an Old? My kid loves the stuff. No accounting for taste, eh?

On the FACE Rating System I give this 1 Frowny Face. It doesn't taste much like a Twinkie, though it gets the "fake chemical" flavor down and ramps it up far more than anything should be. It's sweet enough to choke a unicorn. This may be the cereal for you, but I will fuckin' pass. I just wish I had a different cereal to endure Stephen King's The Sit Down with.

Kotas Reviews the Fried Twinkie

Las Vegas is a town like no other. Giant man-made monuments to consumption and hubris dot the desert landscape, and light up the night with neon and promises of pleasures legal and illicit. Everywhere you go there is someone who wants to put a drink in your hand and a smile on your face. They have a surprisingly high number of aquariums for some reason. Then there is the food, OH THE FOOD! It is glorious in both quality and quantity, though not always at the same time, but occasionally you get the best of both worlds. Then...you don't. I'm just back from a whirlwind tour of some of the most Buffet buffets Vegas has to offer, and from there I turn to today's promised glory. Ladies and gentlemen, let's take a look at the glory of the Fried Twinkie.

TA DAAAAAA!

While feasting at the glorious MGM Grand Champagne Brunch (what a steal, if you drink 3-4 mimosas...and who doesn't?), I came across a whole platter of doughnuts and the like. Nestled next to it was a small pile of the legendary Fried Twinkies, left there almost as an afterthought. Of COURSE I had to snag one. I mean, look at it! The outside has a crisp shell, which leads me to believe this particular variety was dipped in batter first. I'll be honest, it smells heavenly, with a lovely sweet vanilla aroma that makes this thing seem super special. It mostly looks like a Twinkie, but really it could be any old fried cylinder of dough. Let's crack it open!

Stacked all fancy like, because reasons!

Well, it's...pretty much just some fried cake at this point. There is only the barest bit of "not quite as solid as the rest of this" in the middle that hints that perhaps at some point there might have been some filling. Otherwise it's just another doughnut. A sub PAR doughnut. The texture and taste of the crisp outside is quite nice, but the cake inside just got kind of tough and chewy. There's no filling to contrast with, presumably because it has been super-heated and thus dispersed through the cake itself rather than being the burst of sugary sweetness we are used to in a regular non-fried Twinkie. It's not bad, but it's not particularly good either. I expected better of you, Twinkie. Or maybe I should blame those who could not appreciate you for what you are but instead sought to make you more than what you could possibly become. Tough call, really.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 1 Frowny Face. It's not awful, but it is very disappointing. Maybe it could be improved with a more "tempura" light fry sort of a affair, but as presented here it's a big old pile of meh. If you are in the MGM Grand Buffet and see one, you might as well try it for yourself, but as a stand alone product I would pass.

Kotas Reviews Ghostbusters Key Lime Slime Twinkies

It's funny how things in pop culture are recycled over time. Popularity comes unexpectedly, is carried through to a multi-media blitz. The public finally tires of it. And then Ralston gets the rights to the cereal. Such is the cycle of pop cultural life..or at least, it would be in any sane world. Today we live in a world where movies are ascribed ridiculous amounts of meta-textual meaning that perhaps is unwarranted. But you know what? We're not here to discuss that. Some new fuckin' Twinkies came out. Let's dive into...Ghostbusters Key Lime Twinkies

I ain't afraid o' no promotion!

Well Hostess, your triumphant return to the realm of snack foods has heralded a greater variety of Twinkies than I've seen in years. Seriously, the banana ones are a staple of the snack cake isle at my local grocery, albeit with less media tie ins. So what do we have here? Well, for one thing, this is both very interesting AND super lazy tie in box art you can have. The background art is superb, with the box dripping in slime and the "slime" font for the flavor title is fantastic. That said? The tie in portion of our box is the Ghostbusters logo, with the word "Ghostbusters" beneath it. Hell, the phrase "LIMITED EDITION" gets more billing than the actual movie title! And where is a picture of the cast, or at least, you know, SLIMER? The OBVIOUS FUCKING CHOICE HERE? Did the rights cost just a little TOO much this time? Hostess has a lot to learn from Minute Maid in this regard. Eh, let's tell 'em 'bout the Twinkie.

Representing the sum total of paranormal activity occurring in my kitchen.

Again, this just strikes me as odd. The picture on the box led me to believe we would be getting a Twinkie with BRIGHT NEON GREEN filling that would zap your mouth with key lime insanity. Instead we get this...oddly unappetizing moldy looking green mash that actually has what appear to be flecks of dark green...Egon only knows what in it. Even the underside holes look filled with horror rather than delightful flavor (side note: Heh heh, filled holes ya'll). These sort of look like they went through the wrong machine. Still, they smell appropriately key limey, and, well, gross out foods are a staple of childhood, right? No? Just me then? DAMN IT. Let's eat.

Ghostbusters is, at its heart, a media property about using your science brain to solve problems and shoot spooky, yet visually interesting monsters with brightly colored zap guns before you shove them into a box. Zany food tie ins are practically printing money for this franchise. So, how in the world did you make them this BORING? The key lime flavor is incredibly muted with these, to the point where it almost detracts from the sweetness of the filling. You should be crossing flavor streams in my mouth, causing full protonic reversal of my taste buds, but instead, it is full of meh. Did you just take a leftover box of Key Lime flavor dust and add it to the creme, not really making sure to get the proportions right? What a snooze fest. From a Twinkie no less!

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 2 frowny faces. It's a lazy, Class 5 Cash Grab, a real nasty one at that. The idea is great on paper, but the execution falls about as flat as you can get, mostly due to what I can only imagine is a lack of giving a shit. If you are a flavor completionist, maybe try and score one on the cheap or for free, but don't actually bother. Boring is actually worse than simply being bad, or just not working out. Never be boring with your tie-ins! You have the tools, you have the talent, but you apparently just left all that at home for this one.

Kotas Reviews Banana Twinkies

You know, Media Tie In foods are often kind of a crap shoot. They could be amazingly well crafted deliciousness, or they could be made of stale packing peanuts and rancid globs of high viscosity corn syrup. Sometimes, they are both! Today we will be examining one of the cuter entries into this category. Ladies, gentlemen, children of most ages, welcome to the world of Minion Themed Banana Twinkies!

I did not get to go to Paris.

I've written about Twinkies before, being one of those staples of childhood that never quite seem to go away as a cultural icon, so I won't repeat that here. What I will tell you is that this is actually a return to roots for Twinkies. You see, when it was invented, the filling was banana cream. During World War II, bananas were rationed so they made the switch to vanilla cream and it became the default. There have been other promotions that used this flavor (such as when the Peter Jackson King Kong movie came out), but this is the first time I've been able to actually taste it. Plus, you know, Minions. Adorable little things, aren't they?

Love the side eye from Stuart there, as if to say "I hate you all".

The packaging of each individual Twinkie is actually fairly clever. Those minions on the front? They are transparent, so the yellow you see is actually the color of the Twinkie inside. I didn't even notice until I was halfway through devouring poor Kevin, and I thought it was a nice bit of cleverness. These things pretty much smell like Twinkies, so there's no real surprise there. The cream is still white, with maaaaaybe a tinge of yellow, but other than a bit of artificial ba-na-na odor, these aren't particularly out of line for a standard Twinkie.

The flavor is...exactly what you'd expect. Creamy artificial banana flavored filling coupled with the tried and true sponge cake that we all know is actually made in an Erlenmeyer flask, this is totally a banana flavored Twinkie. It's a good combo, and I can see why they started with a banana flavor way back in the day. Very tasty, if you like artificial banana.

Only in America!

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 2 Smiling Minion Faces. I like Twinkies, and this is a pretty good addition to the family. I would totally eat these again. For those of you who cannot stand banana flavored sweets, I would advise staying away, but I think this one is pretty solid. Give 'em a whirl!

Kotas Reviews the Hostess Cherry Chocodile Twinkie

Love is in the air dear readers, and that love is cherry flavored. At least, that is what the aisle of my local grocery story would have you believe. Love is also chocolate flavored, as Russell Stover would have you believe. So when picking out a mass market manufactured product that you will use to awkwardly express your feelings toward your significant other without actually expressing those feelings with, you know, words and other gestures, wouldn't it be marvelous to have both chocolate and cherry flavors in one handy package? Of course it would! Thankfully, Hostess is there to save the day. And it threw a Twinkie in there as well. Today's subject is the Hostess Cherry Chocodile Twinkie.

Definitely love flavored.

As an East Coaster, I have not really had the pleasure of sampling the fabled Chocodile during my "snack cake" years. This favorite of Roger Smith was a wholly West Coast phenomena for...reasons I suppose. The Chocodile is essentially a Twinkie covered in Ding Dong chocolate, though die hard Chocodilians will say that is is "so much more then that". When Hostess relaunched in 2013 the Chocodile was not among the survivors, but was rechristened the "Chocodile Twinkie" and relaunched last year. This limited edition flavor is the first I've seen of the treat though. Could a national launch be on the horizon? Who cares, let's eat!

Business on the outside...

The Cherry Chocodile Twinkie comes in a box of 9 individually wrapped cakes in the new "fun size". This of course means they are smaller than regular Chocodiles by about half an ounce. Well, I suppose times are tough everywhere. The box art is fairly eye catching, even for a Limited Edition. Those unfamiliar with the Chocodile's rich history will wonder why the word Chocolate is misspelled, but for those of us "in the business" it is fine. Once you get past the wrapper, you get a pretty underwhelming cake. It pretty much looks like you'd expect it would look, if a bit smaller than you would like.

Party on the inside! WOOOOOOO!

Again, no surprises once you crack open the cake. Hostess perfectly realizes the mind's eye vision of the Chocolate Covered Cherry Twinkie, though really, is that saying a lot? The scent is certainly on theme, with strong cherry notes, a chocolate underscent, and a hint of Twinkie. The flavor itself is surprising. I expected a strong cherry flavor, and I did get that. What I did not expect was that the actual flavor here isn't cherry, but cherry cordial. The artificial cherry flavor has that same faux alcohol flavor that a cherry cordial has, and that association is backed up by the chocolate coating. Personally I thought it wasn't bad, but it could be very off putting for some, even if they would otherwise enjoy a cherry flavored snack cake. A very interesting little cake this is.

On the FACE Rating System, I give this 1 smiley face. It's a better than average snack cake, and I applaud Hostess for trying something new, but I doubt this would become a regular in my snack cake rotation. It will certainly go on the pile as a seasonal treat, though not one I would go too far out of my way for. If you are a snack cake aficionado, this should be on your try list. Walk on the relatively safe and clinical wild side and give it a go. 

Kotas Reviews Halloween Twinkies

Well, it's that time of year again, when big confectioners trot out "Halloween" versions of the various treats they normally offer year 'round, along with any limited edition things they think the public will buy. I've taken a gander at some of these things before, so I figured I should revisit this theme. Plus, my long suffering wife found these at the grocery store. I am sure many of my tens of readers has seen them as well and wondered just what did they taste like? Fret no more, for I am here to review it so you don't have to. Welcome to Night Vale Kotas Reviews Everything.

The horror. The. Horror.

Hostess is back, folks! As many of you might remember, Hostess was out of business for the torturous eternal nightmare period of maybe 8 months last year before roaring back with their "Sweetest Comeback Ever" campaign. Looks like whatever management team they have is trying out a few new things this year. I mean, look at that box! With those terrifying bat shapes and that moon! The moon that drives one to madness at the unspeakable horrors it illuminates in that sickly yellow light. See the...rather serene expression on Twinkie the Kid, who is completely calm. Well, I suppose it can't all be perfect in packaging. It's not bad, but I think maybe making Twinkie the Kid up there a vampire would have improved it tremendously. Let us examine our acquisition, shall we?

Seems mostly normal from this angle, with only a hint of the sinister.

And yet, underneath lies the festering uneasiness. Blasphemy, or High Fructose Corn Syrup?

Make no mistake, this is totally a Twinkie, but the scent is an almost overpowering sensation of orangeness and wrongness fused into some sort of lurking presence that steals into the nostrils and leaves one breathless. Mostly because it smells like I think an Orange Colored Icing Factory should. My mind reels at the thought of going on, all my senses screaming at me to halt and yet I simply. Must. KNOW.

The unbridled embodiment of all that is malevolent!

Behold the oozing Creme That Should Not Be! It makes the once familiar and safe into something loathsome and horrible! Where once fluffy white expanses would draw one into the mind's center of peace and relaxation now only malign evil intent gushes forth in its eagerness to infest us all with its rank orange corpulence. The flavor is at once profound and...

Well, actually it was a bit of a disappointment. It was indeed orange, that is for sure, but I was really expecting a much more...orange flavor, given it is supposed to be orange flavored. Unlike the Halloween Oreos you see, where the creme is merely colored and otherwise retains its normal taste, this stuff is clearly altered flavor wise, but instead of being orange flavored it comes off as more orange dye flavored than anything else. It is like eating orange icing from a sheet cake, that has merely been colored. The chemical taste is strong and not particularly pleasant. The sponge cake is the same old Twinkie we know and love and yet the creme has transformed it into an object of pity. It's almost sad, really. 

On the FACE Rating System, the Halloween Twinkie gets 1 frowny face. I just expected so much more from this than I actually got. The packaging is not terrible, but Twinkie the Kid's blandness detracts from that. The look of the creme is spot on, but the taste is a total let down. I was expecting an orange cremesicle sort of taste, and instead got week old grocery store cupcake icing. I was not a fan, is what I'm saying.

Kotas Reviews the Hostess Twinkie Maker

For Christmas, I received a very unusual gift that came with the caveat that I simply MUST review it. Well my loyal reader (readers maybe? I might have more than one), that time is NOW! I was actually able to bust out the device and give it a whirl. Let's see how it all went down.

BASK IN THE GLORY!

Honestly, this thing looks like a glorified sandwich maker. Not a complex piece of equipment, let me tell you. Plug it in, and it gets hot. It has a non-stick coating, which I'm sure will come in handy when I actually try and use this thing. According to Amazon.com, this sucker runs about $20, so it is squarely in the "impulse purchase" category. In short, it's a single purpose novelty device, and all that entails. Time to mix up some batter and see what we get!

The machine comes with a pastry bag attachment with several nozzles and an instruction manual/recipe book. In this instance I've opted to go with the "Classic Twinkie" recipe and the "Vanilla Cream Filling" recipe. There are also recipes for chocolate Twinkies, Red Velvet Twinkies, and a Marshmellow Creme based filling. The classic vanilla cream is "mostly corn syrup and other sugar, with some butter and vanilla flavoring". It ends up tasting nothing like standard Twinkie filling, but it's not bad. The cream took a bit of work to assemble, but thanks to my wife's help with the mixer, we got it prepped for the tasks ahead.

Ready for squeezin', just like a large industrial bakery used to make.

The recipe for both batter and filling says "8 servings". This is a dirty, dirty lie, as I got enough filling for 2 dozen Twinkies and ended up making 12 full size cakes and a couple of "half cakes" with the remnants of the batter. The batter seems like a pretty standard cake recipe, so I suspect you could get away with just using a box cake mix. It is pretty thick, and tastes like vanilla cake batter. I know you are all shocked. Here are the action shots, for those who are interested.

Doesn't this just SCREAM deliciousness?

Helpful light is helpful. This tells me it is "hot".

Job's Done!

The thing itself is fairly difficult to fill, if only because not only do the cake wells get hot, but that entire top piece ALSO gets blazing hot. Two adults managed to burn themselves on that while filling the wells and removing the cakes. It is also really, REALLY easy to overfill or under fill the wells, so getting it just right is as much art as science. Getting the cakes out can also prove difficult as it comes with no proper tool for removal. I had my best results with just taking a toothpick, scrunching the cake with it, then popping it out. We still had a few casualties that were unsalvagable except as "mid-creation" snacks.

The bold survivors of our extraction efforts. We salute you!

After practicing on a few of the failures, I felt confident enough to try my hand at filling the cakes. We also had a few store bought Twinkies for comparison, since that seemed like a fine thing to do.

Our Control Subject

Ready to have the holes filled! It sounded less dirty before I typed it out.

I might need a cigarette.

Control and Test subject

One of these things is not like the other...

From this side, they look a lot more alike. 

So, as you can see, the resulting snack treats are ultimately almost but not quite unlike store-bought Twinkies. I'm thinking they need a different name to differentiate them. Something with a one letter difference to show their weird knock-off status. Twankies maybe? Let's go with Twankies. Let's crack these bad boys open!

The Twankie really falls short in the "amount of creme" department.

The major problem in this batch is the creme. Since I filled the cake before it was quite cool enough, the creme sort of got absorbed into the cake without really filling it, unlike the regular Twinkie, which overflows with vanilla cream-osity. Taste wise, the Twankies aren't bad at all, tasting a lot like a sweet vanilla flavored yellow cake. The creme is a nice accent to that flavor, and overall they are something I don't mind eating. They are exactly NOTHING like a Twinkie though, so if you are looking for that store bought snack cake essence, you will find no such dark sorcery here. 

The machine is not terribly difficult to use, but it requires more precision and care than the packaging would indicate. This is certainly no "set it and forget it" sort of operation. It is also not a good product for kids. The hot parts get REALLY hot, and it is very easy to burn oneself on them, especially because of that top plate. The same could be said for a standard oven as well, though getting the cakes OUT of this thing is more burn prone than an oven. It is also kind of a bitch to clean, as the hot bits do NOT pop out of the machine for easy rinsing, so be prepared to wait for it to cool down, and then scrub it out with a damp cloth. 

On the FACE Rating System, I give the Hostess Twinkie Maker 1 smiley face, for the novelty of it, if not ease of use or safety. The Twankies it produces I give 0 faces, as they aren't bad, but they aren't particularly good either. I think with practice I could get a lot better at making and filling these things, so the theoretical future batches might be a lot better.