History

• The Twinkie was introduced in 1933 by the Continental Baking Company of Indianapolis, Indiana. They were invented by James Dewar as a way to use machinery for filling strawberry shortcake when strawberries were out of season. Although the original filling was banana flavored, the cream filling was eventually changed to vanilla.
  
  

Manufacturing Process

• The Twinkie cakes are baked in molds. The cream filling is injected at multiple points from the bottom of the finished cakes. Once filled, they are placed on waxed cardboard and wrapped for sale.
  
  

Nutrition

• A package of Twinkies contains two cakes. These two cakes contain 300 calories with 90 calories being from fat. They contain 16 percent of the U.S. recommended daily allowance (RDA) of overall fat and 20 percent of the U.S. RDA of saturated fat. The two cakes contain 14 percent of RDA of cholesterol and 16 percent of the recommended dietary quantity of salt.
  
  

Culinary Uses

• There are numerous recipes for desserts made with Twinkies. Two of the most common are breaded, deep fried Twinkies and chocolate covered Twinkies.
  
  

Shelf Life

• Twinkies are the stuff of urban legend. Twinkies are reputed to have a shelf life anywhere from several months to hundreds of years. Some myths state that Twinkies never decompose. The shelf life of a package of Twinkies is 25 days, according to mythbuster Snopes.