The Sweet Saga of Twinkies

How a Depression-era snack cake became a modern-day pop culture icon

Evan-Amos, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

This is the story of an American brand that became bigger than life. The tale begins in 1919 when a Midwestern firm, the Continental Baking Company, introduced a snack cake called the Hostess CupCake. Cupcakes had been baked in America since the early 1800s, but Hostess packaged the confection for national distribution. The CupCake was so popular it led to an entire line of Hostess sweet treats.

A New Snack Cake is Born

In 1930, when strawberries were out of season, a bakery machine used to fill pans with strawberry shortcake sat idle at a Continental Baking Company plant in Illinois. An employee named James Dewar came up with a way to keep the machine running. He created a new snack cake made of golden sponge cake and filled with cream. Bananas were easy to get, so he concocted a banana-flavored cream filling.

Dewar named the new snack cake “Twinkies.” Why? Because he happened to see a billboard for “Twinkle Toe Shoes” and he changed “Twinkle” to “Twinkie.” Yup, it was that simple — unlike brands of today that go through a costly, elaborate naming process.

Twinkies were sold in packages of two for just five cents. They were an affordable indulgence — a perfect way to brighten up the day during the Depression. Twinkies continued to be popular in the 1940s, but when bananas were rationed and hard to obtain during World War II, vanilla cream filling was used instead. That’s how the modern-day Twinkie was born.

Boomer Kids Go Crazy for Twinkies

“Twinkies” by JeepersMedia is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The “baby boom” that occurred in the United States after World War II coincided with the renewed availability of such staples as flour and sugar. Continental Baking Company saw an opportunity, improving and expanding the Hostess line of snack cakes. In 1950, for example, the Hostess CupCake was modified to include a squiggle of icing on top, along with an injection of the cream filling used in Twinkies. When television came along, Continental Baking Company advertised…