Hostess & the School Lunch Box

When I was in elementary school and even middle school, I usually took my lunch with me to school.  Our family never used Wonder Bread, but the kids across the street ate nothing but Wonder Bread. Our family tended to use Sunbeam for the white bread. At some point, other types of bread began to be more available, and we began to purchase wheat bread in addition to the white bread. Eventually all of us preferred the wheat bread so we rarely purchased a loaf of white bread at all.

We had one of those commercial bakery thrift shops in town that mom called "the bread store." I don't remember who ran it, but I do know that we often purchased the "day old" bread as mom called it.

Typically I would have a sandwich in my lunch box. It might be peanut butter and jelly. It might be bologna. It might even be turkey, ham, roast beef, or tuna salad.

There would be a little bag of chips also. We'd get those at the bread store too because they would have packages with at least a dozen little bags of chips in them. Mom would usually get the variety pack, so it might be Fritos corn chips one day, cheese curls one day, Lay's potato chips one day, and Doritos another day.

Then, there was the Hostess snack cake. They had these at "the bread store" too. My favorites were Ding Dongs (or King Dons as the packaging sometimes said). I have to admit that I inherited the chocolate gene from my Swiss ancestors. I would sometimes have those Sno-Ball cakes that looked much better than they tasted. Once in awhile, I also had a Twinkie, but they were never my favorite snack cake. Most of the time, I got a Ding Dong for dessert!

I was sad to hear of the demise of Hostess this past week. I haven't eaten a Twinkie, Ding Dong, or Sno Ball in years, but the thought of never tasting them again has made me want to relive the experience. Unfortunately the stores are all sold out. Then I thought about copycat recipes that abound on the Internet. I suspected that there were copycat recipes for almost every Hostess product. It turns out I was correct.

If you get an urge to relive your childhood lunch snacks, perhaps these links will help you.

Twinkies: http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Hostess-Twinkie-Recipe.html
Ding Dongs: http://acozykitchen.com/homemade-ding-dongs/
Sno Balls: http://bakingbites.com/2008/08/homemade-sno-ball-cupcakes/
Wonder Bread: http://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-wonder-bread-92282
Zingers: http://www.grouprecipes.com/129430/home-made-twinkies-and-zingers.html