Organic Vegan Twinkie Recipe

The best of all the homemade Twinkie recipes we tried, these organic vegan twinkie cakes will knock even the most conventional meat-eater's socks off.

As you might remember from our Great Twinkie Taste Off, the following recipe comes from this review which was too provocative to ignore.  As the winner of the challenge, these Twinkie cakes have earned their own complete Instructable.

It's no small undertaking, but the resulting cakes are so delightful, you won't begrudge a moment of effort, and your friends will be begging you for more.

Step 1 Necessities

This is no small list of ingredients.  I, for one, had never used arrowroot before, and had to search three different stores for it before I realized I was searching in the entirely wrong section all along.  (check in spices)


Cake:

* 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
* 1 cup unbleached white flour
* 6 tablespoons light organic cane sugar
* 1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
* 1/3 cup expeller pressed canola oil
* ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup, Grade A, dark amber
* ¾ cup vanilla soymilk or rice milk
* 2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
* 2 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar


Filling:

* 7 ounces firm tofu, drained (simmer in water for 5 minutes)
* 4 teaspoons expeller pressed canola oil
* 2 tablespoons maple syrup, Grade A amber
* 3 tablespoons raw light agave syrup
* 6 tablespoons light organic cane sugar
* 3/4 teaspoon very finely grated lemon zest
* 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
* 4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
* ½ teaspoon pure coconut extract
* 1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
* 1 1/2 ounces of vegan white chocolate melted
* 2 tablespoons arrowroot dissolved in 6 tablespoons soy creamer


You will need a food processor.

Comments

[susanrm]

I just saw this. It looks amazing! I haven't read through all the comments, because there are so many, but in case this was missed - SILK hasn't been organic in a couple of years. It was bought by Dean Foods, which promptly moved to Chinese non-organic soybeans (yikes), and they relabeled it "natural" instead of "organic." People who were used to the product didn't necessarily notice the new labeling. I informed my co-op, which now carries So Delicious creamers made from coconut instead. They are tasty AND organic.

Love the recipe, will try it when sweets are permissible again! I would love to know if someone has successfully adapted it to work with powdered stevia.

[nikkab0o]

my grandfather is diabetic and i planned on making these for him. i'm already subbing the sugar for splenda, is there anything i can sub the maple syrup for?
and if anyone could tell me where to find vegan whit choc. i've checked like three stores already!

[nikkab0o]

also at the end it says, leftovers can be stored and chilled. does that mean it HAS to be refrigerated?

[beowulf_]

Oh I see. In a previous section, where you said to "make an incision," I thought that meant a cut down the length of the cake. But from this picture it looks like you actually meant, "make two holes on the bottom of each cake (one hole at each end)." I'm assuming the holes should be no deeper than halfway through the cake?

[scoochmaroo]

I've updated the instructions to try and be more clear. Thanks for the input!

[carmen_sandiego]

How do you fill the cakes the way Twinkies are filled with just the 2 holes?
Doesn't the "dug out" part have to connect the two holes so that you have a tube of filling in the middle rather than filling in 2 spots?

[Baby Doll]

YAY! I'm excited to try this =]=] Thanks for adding it!

[atombomb1945]

I am kinda at a loss here. I have always seen Vegan as a more healthy way of living. And I have always seen the best part of a Twinkie as being the "not so good for you" part of it. I feel like this could tear the space time continuum. But for this, I am willing to risk it.

[paulathing]

We vegans can be fatasses, too! You can't deny me twinkies! And chocolate cake! And soymilkshakes! Just hold the beef. ;D

[bettbee]

And the milk, cheese, cream, honey, etc.

[paulathing]

And casein, gelatin, lactic acid, wool... There's a lot of label reading.

[bettbee]

LOL, my mother won't go shopping with me anymore. She goes nuts when I start reading labels . . .

[TheChemiker]

NOOOOO, beef is king!

[TheChemiker]

Why organic? Organic is just an overhyped type of food and farming that has no benifits at all. It is no better than conventional farming, in fact, It is actually worse.

[bettbee]

Ah, the Internet, where Monsanto shills can roam at will, making statements with no foundation at all.. Gotta love it.

[TheChemiker]

No, I know my stuff. Organic can carry diseases, while conventional cannot. Organic uses more farmland for the same amount of food, making it much less land effeciant. Conventional farming uses fertilizer that is engineered not to harm humans and make the plant grow larger, faster, and produce more food. And ad extra nutrients. I knew someone would say something like that, but where are your foundations? Tell me why organic is better. Who says you know your stuff?

[bettbee]

We were growing organic food from the origins of human agricultural practice until extremely recently - up to about the end of the second world war. Organic vegetables and other foods only carry disease when they become infected by contact with animal waste or spoiled meat in the handling process. Farmers who use traditional practices, like using manure for fertilizer, must know how to properly compost the fertilizer, otherwise it can transmit pathogens. Organic farming can actually grow much more food per acre, especially when using biointensive methods. Crop loss from insects has remained about the same, the only difference is massive profits to agricultural input makers and huge expense for farmers. The chemicals used as pesticides and herbicides are deathly for the people who eat them, and for the environment they are used in.

[TheChemiker]

We were going to the bathroom in bushes until recently, we were walking barefoot to locations until recently, but do we still do that now? No, we have invented better ways of doing things like that, including farming. And there have been death cases from organic food due to the farmer not knowing what he was doing and transmitting disease, but none with conventional farming. And no, the pesticides and herbicides are not deadly for the people who eat them, because we get it in such a mircosopic dose that it does not harm us. We have uranium natually in our bodies, but it is not toxic to us because the amount is so small. They also don't affect the enviroment. And the fact that organic farming can transmit disease is bad, because not every farmer can make the food safe. And conventional does grow more land per square acre, organic will always be less efficiant, because the manure does not have all of the nutrients that fertilizer does. Why do we have to use the same method our ancestors used, if we have designed a better way?

[zenser]

can't leave bettbee hanging out there. bettbee is just plain right. that is simple. If Monsanto or Dow is paying a troll to hang out and misinform the boards, they should be outed for speaking that trash. Clearly what TheChemiker calls "conventional" farming is an euphemism for destructive practices that endanger all our lives.

[bettbee]

Thanks, Zenser. Amazing, isn't it?

[TheChemiker]

bettbee is just plain wrong. Conventional farming is not at all a destructive practice, and it does not endanger anybody's life. And even if all of my arguments were irrelevent, there is one that shows that organic is worthless: cost. If all farming were organic, the world would not be able to buy any food. People would starve becaue organic is so much more inefficiant and expensive. We would have a shortage of food, and the food that is produced would be too expensive to buy for a huge amount of people. This is not a thing I made up, this is fact. So unless you want food to become incredibly expensive and not have as much food as before, you should realize that conventional farming with fertilizer is the safer and better way.

[bettbee]

Dear TheChemiker, Your saying these things does not make them so. Please go read some of those links I left for you below. This is going to be a multi-part response because I can't figure out how to make paragraphs and one long response becomes unreadable. But this is an important issue and I wish to discuss it seriously. So here goes. Please reply to the last one where I discuss composted and green manure as fertilizers.

[bettbee]

Bottom line, some folks want to believe that the big-daddy agricultural companies know what they're doing because people want to think that everything is going to be ok. It is very tempting to believe that there is some authority figure who will make it all allright, who will work out how to feed the world with some as-yet-undiscovered technological solution. But almost every technological solution in farming has turned out to destroy soil, poison water, make farmers sick, make consumers sick, and leave dangerous residues in foods. The vegetables responsible for the big recalls following headlines of deaths from various bacterial contamination have all been conventionally farmed. More than conventionally farmed, they have been parts of huge monocrop systems. The cows that have killed people with E. Coli O157:H7 have all come from conventional feedlot systems. The same with the "downer" cows that are the source of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The largest ag companies control so much of certain commodities that they are legally considered monopolies and the government is pursuing antitrust suits against them.

[bettbee]

Worse, traditional farming methods like the practice of seed saving are currently under attack from Monsanto in ways such as the underhanded method of planting out its GMO crops and then suing any nearby farmer subsequently found to have seeds containing their DNA - which is spread in the form of pollen on the wind. It is impossible for farmers within miles of these Monsanto fields to keep this DNA out of their fields and crops and seeds. They are also suing the seed cleaners who have been plying their trade for generations, and putting them out of business. The problem is that right or wrong, if Monsanto sues you you almost never have enough money to defend the suit. It's bullying, plain and simple, and it has the potential to create large swaths of lands where nothing but their GMO crops will grow.

[bettbee]

So, TheChemiker, you have no idea what you're talking about. You keep making these very aggressive assertions, but you offer nothing specific with which to back up your arguments. I keep answering because I'm afraid that folks may find your simplistic statements alluring - I wish I could just walk into any supermarket and choose the cheapest produce that looks good, but I know too much about how these things are farmed. Not only don't I want chemical residues in my food, but I don't support the environmental costs of their production, nor the subsidy system that rewards huge agricultural corporations over smaller farmers.

[bettbee]

I'd also love to know what kinds of schooling you have had in this area. Personally, on top of many years of private research and networking, I just got my BA and in its pursuit have taken classes in Food, Agriculture, Environment, Development, Sociology, Nutrition, General Biology, General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry.

[bettbee]

Oh, and properly composted manure and green manures like white clover, peas, lentils, various vetches, medic, and more, are fantastic fertilizers. Check out http://rodaleinstitute.org/new_farm for information on how farms can transition from conventional to organic and make their operations both healthy and affordable, for farmer and consumer alike.

[bettbee]

PS - many of the arguments that TheChemiker is proposing have their origins in outdated theoretical works like the early writings of Thomas Malthus (who reversed his positions later in life.) His early work proposed that the earth has a limited "carrying capacity" and that the armies of poor and shiftless peasants who were having children at indecent rates would gobble up all the food that the earth could produce. War, pestilence and disease were forces for good, cutting the ranks of the lower classes' population. (Upper classes had "moral restraint," which kept them from succumbing to the urge to have sex and thus children.) Feeding the poor only exacerbated the problem. These early opinions were informed by social movements like Social Darwinism, which sought to categorize people into groups of lesser or greater intrinsic merit by their class and income level.

[bettbee]

Much of current public policy is based on theories like these, which have their roots in the efforts of the growing middle and upper classes of bygone times to legitimate their own selfish and antisocial behavior. New theoreticians are constantly being produced who are willing to write swill like Garret Hardin's "Lifeboat Ethics" or "The Tragedy of the Commons." Such writings support and legitimate the wealthiest and largest corporations in doing morally indefensible things.

[zenser]

Seriously, TheChemiker "oh, no...we're all going to die of food shortage". Nice try. You are not communicating with an uninformed person, it is not even barely possible that a person educated to these issues could hold your professed opinion. Simply wrong. I was not wanting to argue with TheChemisitute, I am agreeing with bettbee. But while I have your attention: Address the real issue, which is... "How much does TheChemiker get paid?". There is a very small group of people who actually benefit from telling vicious lies like this to the rest of us. Are you, Chemi, one of those? Do you derive your income, pay your rent, buy your own pesticide-laden food with money earned by misinforming the public about real dangers presented to all of us by companies like Freeport MacMoran and other industrial criminals? Can you even consider that your "fact" is a vicious, destructive lie, that realistically people and all our companion species are Really dying all the time, today, not just in the past, because of the pernicious presence of you and your fellow liars? I would love to know your name.

[bettbee]

And thanks again, zenser! I wonder if this is a Monsanto shill or just a person who really, really wants to believe that the big old corporations will do the right thing? (Of course we know that the right thing for them is what will provide the healthiest bottom line.) But against all reason, some people actually trust corporate entities. This is not to say there aren't corporations that have leadership which is trying to do the same thing. There are. But in general, they can be counted on to support management and their shareholders, and nobody else.

[TheChemiker]

Now you are against corporations too? I won't even try to tell you how much corporations have benifitted the US and the world. Very few corporations and buisnesspeople are only out for profit and not quality. But whatever, this is hopeless.

[bettbee]

Dear TheChemiker, One day you will have a more complex view of the world. I hope that you will manage to get educated in as many sides of economic theory as possible. I agree that there are some businesspeople out for quality, but unfortunately they often turn a blind eye to some of the unintended consequences of their search for a better product. Also, there are cynical people who do the wrong thing for money, and these people are not rare. I'm sorry to tell you this, even though I do not think you are mature enough to hear me, yet anyway. But you will be one day, and I hope you think back upon these conversations when you begin questioning some of the attitudes and opinions you basically have to hold because of who your dad is and what he does. It would have been helpful had you disclosed your age and automatic bias at the beginning of all this.

[bettbee]

Ok, so TheChemiker has taken this discussion out of the public conversation which I didn't realize (and don't appreciate.) I've been responding thinking that everything was still in the full view of the forum. I feel I must point out that this is an 8th-grader, whose father works in the fertilizer industry. I hate to do it, but this kid is not being straight with people. Ordinarily I would let it drop, except that he is going around insisting on some very repugnant and environmentally dangerous opinions, by suggesting that he is a chemist and insisting that he knows what he is talking about. Better he comes up against it now than later . . . I am hoping that this person learns to be more forthcoming about his qualifications, or lack thereof, for making certain statements.

Anyway, the insistence on this very narrow point of view, along with the aggressive stance and clearly uninformed arguments, are now explained.

He has just asked me to stop using the term "chemical fertilizer" because it sounds bad, which reveals a tendency to whitewash things . . . I conceded that we could use the term "synthetic" as well. I also told him that chemical fertilizers can deplete soil, which he does not understand. He responded by asking how adding nutrients to soil can deplete soil of nutrients, in response to which I cite the peer reviewed paper at:

http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/38/6/2295

which explains this phenomenon quite clearly. I also brought up the fact that manufacturing fertilizer is an extremely energy-intensive process. I did not mention, but will now, that chemical pesticide and fertilizer usage generally also require both increased irrigation, which leads to soil mineralization and further depletion of the soil, and heavy tillage, which also breaks down and destroys soil.

Hopefully this will be an end to it.

[zenser]

Well, sure. I reckon I got your back, bettbee. It's not so often that someone else handles the tedium of explaining science and biology to a self-proclaimed expert while I sit back and whistle, phew. Well done, I say. Nice. Although, I think the question remains, the very serious question of whether or not this person, posting as TheChemiker, is in fact, in the pay of or affiliated in any way with a corporation which makes or sells commercial, harmful substances, like Roundup for example. If this is a person who is making money by denouncing true experts and misinforming the people on the boards about very real, life-threatening issues...well, perhaps the people who provide us with Instructables should be asked to moderate...it seems to me like an actionable offense, exposing people to this kind of destructive, ignorant message. Shouldn't we defend our right to have truth in our content? In my opinion, we have a right to the truth, when lies like this can and do cause death.

[bettbee]

Hey zenser, Well I don't think we have a shill, I think we have a young person whose father works in the agricultural arena as an agronomist. At a certain age, it's hard to question one's dad and the things he does for a living. I'm sure the dad has drunk the "technological solution" Kool-aid and is passing along his biases to his child. TheChemiker will grow up and undoubtedly learn to question authority and a whole lot more things, and hopefully one day will work out why the world is being destroyed by folks who stand to make a whole lot of money and who have convinced themselves that they aren't doing anything wrong. Denial, as we all know, is not just a river in Egypt.

[zenser]

TheChemiker, Well, gee, kiddo. Your dad, huh? I didn't know. Guess it just about adds up. On the bright side, you now have the opportunity to ask him some well-informed questions about the lies the "farm industry" put in your mouth (about fertilizer, weed/pest control, gmo foods, to name a very few). Howzabout a tiny bit of accountability? It should make for an interesting dinner. And don't forget to eat your greens. They're probably totally safe. Bettbee, Thank you, bettbee, for so thoughtfully clearing the air and I have been mightily heartened by your discourse. Thank you so much for sharing the benefit of your no doubt hard-earned education with me and any other person who has read your analysis here. Oh, and I'm planning to make this recipe for dessert tomorrow, too.

[bettbee]

Another interesting dinner-table conversation could happen around the issue of whether various people think that food is a basic human right. 

Please note that I am not suggesting that TheChemiker goes home and pose blunt questions on these issues to his dad. But I would suggest that he work out ways to observe what his dad really thinks about the various aspects of his work, and the implications for the future of some of the resulting technology.

TC aspires to work in a related field after graduation from whatever level of graduate work he completes, which I hope goes pretty far. If by then he can step back a few steps and view the parental influence through a more mature and objective lens, he has a chance to really add something to the world. I believe that young minds are open almost by default and that he has a chance to work it out. Plus the environmental situation is going to be a bit more extreme by the time he graduates from anything.

So TC hang in there. Just keep your eyes open and learn chemistry and science, but some other stuff too. Where are you thinking of going to college?

[wn7ant]

I wonder how many "basic human rights" there are? How many "basic human rights" can any one person have before they don't participate or contribute (because they've been given everything)? I don't claim to know the answer, I'm just fascinated by the question.

[lizinseattle]

Oh thank you for this recipe. I was astonished last week that somebody had brought in a large box of Twinkies for the 2nd grade snack, now my vegetarian daughter wont' stop talking about Twinkies. ugh.