A Twinkie is a "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling" created by Hostess, and baked by Continental Baking Co , which is owned by Kansas City-based Interstate Bakeries Corporation. The Twinkie was invented on April 6, 1930. Twinkies originally contained a banana filling, but this was replaced with a vanilla filling during the great banana shortage of World War II.

Twinkies are oblong in shape, approximately 4" x 1" (10 cm x 2.5 cm), and marketed in packages of two. They have a shelf life of 25 days due to their lack of dairy based ingredients. Various urban legends have stated that Twinkies have shelf lives anywhere from several years up to one century in duration, but there is no evidence to support this. The Twinkie is often derided by unattributed critics as the quintessential junk food. 500 million are produced each year.

No one really knows the process of how a Twinkie is made. Though most people believe that Twinkies are baked because of the coloring of the bottom of the treat (looks brown as if it was baked in an oven), Continental Foods has never revealed the process of the making of a Twinkie. More information is given in the Family Guy episode where Y2K occurs and Peter and the group have to find the twinkie factory in order to survive.

In 2002, the Arkansas State Fair introduced the fried Twinkie.

The Minnesota Twins are nicknamed the "Twinkies" by fans, a joking reference to the team's tradition of ineptitude dating back to their days as the Washington Senators.

The shortened form of the word twinkie, twink is commonly used slang. In its most common use, in gay circles, it is used for a young, slender, clean-cut man/boy. Far less commonly, the term "twinkie" might be used disparagingly for an Asian-American who emulates Caucasians (yellow on the outside and white on the inside), similar to the term "oreo" for African Americans. In MMORPG-gaming, the term can refer to a low-level character whose weapons and armor give him ridiculously good stats, suggesting that the character has been given the goods by a high-level friend or another character belonging to the player.

See also

• Yodels
• Minnesota Twins
• Twinkie defense

External links

• Welcome to Planet Twinkie
• The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project - humorous "scientific" experiments with Twinkies
• Snopes: Forever Twinkies
• Study for Twinkie authenticity as a "food" done for J. Edgar Hoover
• Seanbaby's Hostess Page An archive of old Hostess ads from comic books, with cynical comments.