Taste Test - Hostess "Fried" Banana Twinkies

State fair season is upon us and with that the myriad of fried items designed to gross us out and tantalize our tongues. From fried oreos (which are awesome) to poptarts and of course Twinkies. This time of the year is a race to throw the oddest item that we can into pancake batter and grease, but if you can't make it to the fair in your state, Hostess has you covered with their Fried Twinkies which you can find in your local grocer's freezer section.

So the first thing is that I think for an item like this, you get a good quantity of product. Often I see something like this and you're only going to get about four servings for 6-7 dollars. Each of the twinkies is a nice size as well. To me, each seems to be a little bit larger than than a normal twinkie and that may be true because of the topping process for these treats. Each of the banana flavored twinkies is covered with some sort of graham cracker crumb concoction. There are three ways to heat, oven, toaster oven or deep fry (of course). We chose to bake them in the oven at 350 degrees.

8 minutes after putting them in the oven they are ready to come out. Our first set had some of the filling overflowing and bubbling out. It wasn't too bad though. It takes a couple of minutes to cool down and then it's time to dig in. There was a decent shell crack but I can tell that if you deep fry it would be even more crispy on the outside, although you would have to watch it very closely to ensure the filling doesn't leak all of the way out.


The inside seemed a bit overly mushy to me, even considering that this is a sweet banana creme filling inside of a sponge cake. It wasn't too off-putting but I noticed it. The flavor was crazy sweet when I tasted the creme by itself. The banana flavoring was there, but you know this isn't a natural product. You can't even pretend that you don't know this these are bad for you. When you eat all the components together the sweetness is cut slightly with the graham cracker crust providing a slight contrast in flavor and texture. I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted as good as it did considering just what it is that I'm eating.


If you can't get to the fair, grabbing a box of these for the family to eat once or twice isn't the worst idea ever. You will have enough for everyone to have one or maybe two and be able to have something a little bit different. However, I wouldn't have these in the freezer regularly. They just aren't that great and are really sweet and you're asking for trouble if you indulge in these too often. One idea could be to add some actual fruit like strawberries to this and make it an actual full desert. The key is to add complimentary flavors that don't add sweetness because it has more than enough on its own.

Rating: 2.5/5