Hostess (snack cakes)

Last updated
Hostess
Hostess Brands LLC logo.png
Hostess twinkies tweaked.jpg
Hostess Twinkies
Product type Snack cakes
Owner Hostess Brands
CountryU.S.
Introduced1919;104 years ago (1919)
Markets North America Europe (United Kingdom)
Website www.hostesscakes.com

Hostess Cake, mostly known simply as Hostess, is a brand under which snack cakes are sold by Hostess Brands. The brand originated in 1919 when the first Hostess CupCake was sold. However, it is better-known as the brand under which Twinkies are sold, after that product appeared in 1930.

Contents

The brand was owned by the Continental Baking Company until 1995, when Continental was acquired by Interstate Bakeries Corporation. IBC became "Hostess Brands" in 2009 and began liquidating its assets in 2012 following a strike by the BCTGM union. The defunct business is now known as Old HB. In 2013, the cake business of Hostess Brands was sold to a "new" Hostess Brands owned by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company, and Hostess-branded products officially returned on July 15, 2013. [1]

Products and advertisements

In the 1970s and 1980s, Hostess frequently promoted its snack foods in whole page comic book advertisements in major publishers such as DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Harvey Comics, Archie Comics and Gold Key Comics. [2]

The format featured a complete one page comic strip story, drawn by one of the relevant publisher's artists such as Neal Adams for DC and Frank Miller for Marvel, where major characters from the publisher of the periodical solve a problem with Hostess Brands products. In the DC and Marvel ads, a superhero typically defeats a villain by distracting and/or bribing them with those products, although there is also a series of advertisements individually featuring the supervillains, The Joker and the Penguin, failing to do the same with their enemies. In the other publishers, their humor focus allowed more varied plots along the same theme. (This was parodied in Dexter's Laboratory , with the Captain America parody Major Glory from the "Justice Friends" sketch using "Justice Fruit Pies" to thwart his enemy.)

Mascots

The brand had several mascots, all anthropomorphicized versions of their products, most notably Twinkie the Kid, a Twinkie dressed like a wrangler.

Other mascots include:

Products

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolly Madison</span> Snack food brand

Dolly Madison is an American bakery brand owned by Hostess Brands, selling packaged baked snack foods. It is best known for its long marketing association with the Peanuts animated TV specials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twinkie</span> American snack cake

A Twinkie is an American snack cake, described as "golden sponge cake with a creamy filling". It was formerly made and distributed by Hostess Brands. The brand is currently owned by Hostess Brands, Inc., itself currently undergoing an acquisition by The J.M. Smucker Company and having been formerly owned by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company as the second incarnation of Hostess Brands. During bankruptcy proceedings, Twinkie production was suspended on November 15, 2012, and resumed after an absence of a few months from American store shelves, becoming available again nationwide on July 15, 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ding Dong</span> Small chocolate cake of hockey puck size

A Ding Dong is a chocolate cake produced and distributed in the United States by Hostess Brands and in Canada from Vachon Inc. under the name King Dons; in some U.S. markets, it was previously known as Big Wheels. With the exception of a brief period in 2013, the Ding Dong has been produced continuously since 1967. It is round with a flat top and bottom, close to three inches in diameter and slightly taller than an inch, similar in shape and size to a hockey puck. A white creamy filling is injected into the center and a thin coating of chocolate glaze covers the cake. The Ding Dong was originally wrapped in a square of thin aluminum foil, enabling it to be carried in lunches without melting the chocolate glaze.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chocolate cake</span> Baked cake flavored with chocolate

Chocolate cake or chocolate gâteau is a cake flavored with melted chocolate, cocoa powder, or both.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ho Hos</span> American snack cake brand

Ho Hos are small, cylindrical, frosted, cream-filled chocolate snack cakes with a pinwheel design based on the Swiss roll. Made by Hostess Brands, they are similar to Yodels by Drake's and Swiss Cake Rolls by Little Debbie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chocodile Twinkie</span> Confection created by the Hostess Brands company

Chocodile Twinkies are a confection created by the Hostess Brands company. The confection was known only as Chocodiles prior to 2014. The package describes the snack cake as a "chocolate coated sponge cake with creamy filling." The Chocodile is Twinkie-shaped and sold in packages of two.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grasshopper (cocktail)</span> Sweet, mint-flavored, after-dinner drink

A Grasshopper is a sweet, mint-flavored, after-dinner drink named for its green color, which comes from crème de menthe. Tujague's, a bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, claims its owner Philip Guichet invented the drink in 1918. The drink gained popularity during the 1950s and 1960s throughout the American South.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twinkie the Kid</span> Mascot for Twinkies cakes

Twinkie the Kid is the mascot for Twinkies, Hostess's golden cream-filled snack cakes. He is a registered trademark of Hostess Brands. He made his debut in 1971. He has appeared on product packaging, in commercials and as related collectible merchandise, except for a brief period between 1988 and 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zingers</span> Snack cake

Zingers is a snack cake produced and sold by Dolly Madison and Hostess, snack food brands owned by Hostess Brands.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chocolate:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sponge cake</span> Type of cake

Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hostess CupCake</span> American snack cake brand

Hostess CupCake is an American brand of snack cake produced and distributed by Hostess Brands and currently owned by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos & Company. Its most common form is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing and vanilla creme filling, with seven distinctive white squiggles across the top. However, other flavors have been available at times. It has been claimed to be the first commercially produced cupcake and has become an iconic American brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hostess Brands</span> American food company

Hostess Brands is an American-based bakery company formed in 2013. It owns several bakeries in the United States that produce snack cakes under the Hostess and Dolly Madison brand names and its Canadian subsidiary, Voortman Cookies Limited, produces wafers and cookies under the Voortman brand name. It is headquartered in Lenexa within Johnson County, Kansas. Its main operating subsidiaries are Hostess Brands, LLC, and Voortman Cookies Limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandwich cookie</span> Cookies kept by two thin cookies or biscuits with filling in between

A sandwich cookie, also known as a sandwich biscuit, is a type of cookie made from two thin cookies or medium cookies with a filling between them. Many types of fillings are used, such as cream, ganache, buttercream, chocolate, cream cheese, jam, peanut butter, lemon curd, or ice cream.

References

  1. Lapowski, Issie (July 15, 2013) Inside Hostess's 'Sweetest Comeback' Campaign Inc.. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
  2. "Hostess Cup Cakes". Grand Comics Database. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  3. Pagán, Angela L. (February 24, 2023). "Hostess Is Making Its Comeback With a New Cake". The Takeout. Retrieved July 18, 2023.