Homemade Strawberry Cream Twinkies

When I made the Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes the other day I got a little over zealous with the frosting and ended up with an extra cup and a half left over.  So I asked myself, what do you do with a cup and half of leftover delicious frosting?  Besides sneak up in the middle of the night and eat it by the spoonful by the light of the fridge that is...not that I would ever do that...I swear... No what you do is make something else that goes with it of course!  Now I have no idea why, but the first thing that popped into my head was Twinkies.  I just felt that this delicious frosting would be great filling for a twinkie!  So I began my research...is there a homemade Twinkie recipe out there?  Turns out there are tons...and seeing as I was lucky enough to get an extra day off this week (Thanks so much President's Day!) I was feeling lazy and decided to use the easiest recipe I found.  It is also by the way the one I found people said tasted the most like Twinkies...just saying.

Many of the recipes I found included instructions for how to make little Twinkie molds so that they would have the rounded tops like Twinkies do.  I found this step to be tedious and unnecessary.  After making 2 molds I decided to say screw it and just bake them in a cake pan and them cut them into rectangles.  If you feel the need to do this, the instructions can be found here.  Mine turned out just fine...

Homemade Twinkies

makes 18

1 package yellow cake mix

4 egg whites, beaten until stiff

2/3 cup water

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Spray a 9"x13" baking pan with non-stick spray and set aside until later.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with a mixer on medium high speed until stiff peaks form; set aside.  In a separate bowl, beat together the cake mix and water for about two minutes on medium speed until well mixed.  Gently fold in egg whites until they are fully incorporated, then pour into cake pan.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool completely before cutting into 18 equal pieces.  

Strawberry Twinkie filling

1 cup leftover frosting, room temperature

1 cup whipping cream

1 Tbsp. sugar

In a medium to large bowl, whip the whipping cream on medium speed until soft peaks form.  Add the sugar and beat another minute or so.  Gently fold the whipped cream into the softened frosting and put into a piping bag to fill the Twinkies.

To fill the Twinkies, poke 3 holes down the length of the Twinkie with a tooth pick or straw like so:

(My daughter and little baked good stalker took this pic by the way!)

Then slowly fill each hole with filling, being careful not to poke the pastry bag out the other side or over fill it as it will crack the Twinkie.  Continue with each Twinkie until finished. 

Enjoy immediately or wrap individually in plastic wrap to eat later!