Cotton Candy Twinkies – 2.5/5
Since Twinkies’ inception in 1930, people have been begging and pleading with Hostess – “Make these dang things MORE SWEET!” For generations, people have been hoping for the day when they could bite into a Twinkie and not immediately recoil because it tasted so healthy and fresh. And finally this spring, Hostess has given in – they released a limited edition Cotton Candy flavor.
The box describes these as “Golden Sponge Cake with Artificially Flavored Cotton Candy Creamy Filling,” and I for one am thankful they were upfront about that, so I didn’t think these were from one of those family-farmed organic cotton candy plants.
Let’s dive in.
Taste: ⅗
If (when.) you ever find yourself in a Secret Santa situation with Willy Wonka, these would be the perfect gift for him – overly sweet, deeply unnecessary and vaguely threatening, like they could probably take out some spoiled British kid if needed.
Close your eyes and imagine how sweet you think these would be. Now imagine it 100x sweeter. After my first bite, my teeth simply fell out of my mouth, the sugar was too much for them to handle. (Bonus though – I’m gonna clean up with the tooth fairy tonight!)
Appearance: ⅕
Oh no, I’m so sorry, these are deeply unsettling to look at. The Cotton Candy Cream is this pretty deep pink color. But you can see little flecks of it through the sponge cake part, giving it the illusion that this Twinkie is actively bleeding. It looks like it’s covered with little cake-covered scabs, like it was in a bad, cream-filled knee-scraping incident on the Hostess playground.
Overall: 2/5
They say (by “they”, i mean “google”) say that Twinkies last for years, decades even. That even a nuclear war couldn’t snuff them out. That means that, potentially, thousands of years from now, an alien lifeforce may find the rest of my Limited Edition Cotton Candy Twinkies and immediately dismiss our entire society because of them. (Maybe rightfully so.)
Pairs Well With: An emergency trip to the dentist and the sinking realization that there’s 9 more of these in the box.