Cream Canoes AKA TWINKIES

Today is my first individual post for Our Kreative Karma.  

I am getting off the card band wagon today and showing you another of my hobbies.  BAKING.  I have been baking for about 40 years, taught by my Mom!    My love for baking is a God given gift, which I love to use to bless others.

So, today, I am going to show you how I make Cream Canoes, which closely resemble Hostess Twinkies.  However, because of copyright laws, I am not allowed to call them Twinkies.  And to be honest, I think the Cream Canoes taste a whole lot better than Twinkies. 

Here is a picture of a pan like the one I use to make my Cream Canoes.  However, these pans are very expensive.  I was given mine as a gift, or I would not own one because of the cost alone.

Here is how you can make the "pans" put of aluminum foil.

Start with a 12 inch square piece of foil.

Fold it in half

Then fold it in half again.  (this is actually a 6X6 inch square now)

Then use a spice bottle as a "mold" to make our pans.

This is your finished "pan".  You will need 16-24 of these.

When you finish these, you will need to spray them with baking spray, like Bakers Joy. 

Now, for the Recipe.

1 cake mix

1 pkg instant pudding  (use sugar free as the extra sugar in the pudding wiill make the cake too sticky)
2 eggs
2 cups milk

Mix all together with an electric mixer. Fill Twinkie pans (called canoe) and bake as directed on the cake mix box. cool completely. 

I measure my batter with a medium cookie scoop.  2 scoops of batter per cake.

If you don't have canoe pans and don;t want to hand make your own, you can also use this batter and make cupcakes.  (just fill the cupcakes)

Cream filling


2 tsp very hot water
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups marshmallow fluff or cream
1/2 cup shortening
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

combine salt and water in a small bowl and stir until salt is dissolved. Let cool.

Combine marshmallow, shortening, powdered sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl, and mix with an electric mixer on high speed until fluffy. 

add the salt solution into the filling mixture. 

You can use any flavor of cake, and be inventive with the filling. You can use peanut butter or coffee frosting w/ chocolate cake, you can use spice cake with pureed apple pie filling.  I have also colored my filling to correspond with certain holidays, like green and red for Christmas, red for Valentines Day, or pastels for Easter. 

To fill your Cream Canoes, you will need a pastry bag of gallon sized freezer bag.  You CAN NOT use a regular gallon sized food storage bag as it is not going to be strong enough and WILL split...trust me..I know from experience!  :)

You will need to put a coupler

 

and a star decorating tip....both of these items as well as the decorator bags can be purchased at any craft store or stores like Walmart. 

I put my tipped bag in a drinking glass to make it easier to put the filling in....No more than a few spoon fulls..or it is too hard to squeeze. 

Here is my loaded pastry bag. 

Here daughter is demonstrating how to fill the cakes...except here, she is holding the bag at 45 degrees, and you want to hold it at 90 degrees.  You only want to squeeze in a little filling, about a tablespoon in each place...or you will split your cake.

Here is what the under side looks like when it is filled.

The completed Cream Canoes AKA Twinkies!

Don't be intimidated.  Go ahead and try these.  I have other copy cat recipes for other Hostess products I can do at a later time.

Please try these....your family will thank you!