Sweetest Comeback in the History of... Whatever

The “New” Twinkies, reintroduced on 15 July 2013 after a half-year hiatus, deserve a bit of attention. Twinkie the Kid may have been banished from the box artwork, but the new Overlords of Golden Sponge Cake nevertheless seem to think that the world has not yet moved on from the concept of snack cakes.

As several news reports have mentioned, the rebooted Hostess Brands reformulated the Twinkie to extend shelf life to 45 days, a 73% increase over the stated 26-day target of the old product. Also rumored but not exactly substantiated is that the New Twinkie is or will be “smaller” somehow than the Old Twinkie.

Well, the only way to resolve the facts is to directly compare Old and New, duh. Fortunately the wise Management of Browne Crowe Bakes had had the foresight to procure one of the last boxes of Old Twinkies and, after double-wrapping in foil, stash said box in the deep freeze on 16 November 2012. There they were kept at 0°F for 8 months, until the inevitable New Twinkies hit the market.

Twinkies: New (Top) and Old (Bottom)

Size Matters

So are the New Twinkies really “smaller”?

Weight of entire Old Twinkies Box of 10: 453.4g; declared net weight 383g.
Weight of entire New Twinkies Box of 10: 459.1g; declared net weight 385g.

Yes, yes, a sample size of one box each makes for a statistical analysis of just about zero significance, but the evidence to date shows no downsizing of the Twinkie... yet.

As an aside, the box width has indeed shrunk to 21cm from 26cm; perhaps this is the source of the downsizing rumors.
 

 Ingredients for a L-o-n-g-e-r Shelf Life

Would there have been blood in the streets if the New Twinkies formula had been changed too much? Perhaps Hostess feared a debacle like the New Coke fiasco (which some suspected as having been a marketing gimmick).

But to meet revenue goals even after post-bankruptcy restructuring and smacking the bakers’ and truckers’ unions, Hostess seemingly had no choice but to make their products even less prone to staling and outright spoilage. Pity, for the result is that the Twinkie has become even less foodlike than before.

Let us glance at the New and Old ingredients declarations, with the deltas highlighted: Added and Omitted.

Enriched bleached wheat flour:
  Flour
  Reduced iron
  Niacin
  Thiamine mononitrate (B1)
  Riboflavin (B2)
  Folic acid
Water
Sugar
Corn syrup
High fructose corn syrup
Shortening, partially hydrogenated:
  Soybean oil
  Cottonseed and/or canola oil
  Beef fat
Whole eggs
Dextrose
Soy lecithin
Leavenings:
  Sodium acid pyrophosphate
  Baking soda
  Corn starch
  Monocalcium phosphate
Whey
Modified corn starch
Glucose
Glycerin  New
Soy flour Old
Salt
Soybean oil New
Mono- and diglycerides
Cellulose gum
Sodium stearoyl lactylate
Natural flavor
Artificial flavor
Sorbic acid
Artificial flavor
Polysorbate 60
Corn starch
Xanthan gum  New
Soy protein isolate  Old
Calcium caseinate  Old
Sodium caseinate  Old
Enzyme  New 
Wheat flour  New
Yellow 5
Red 40

and the FDA-mandated Nutrition Facts; Old Twinkies label with New annotation:

Serving Size 2 Cakes (77g)
Servings Per Container 5
Amount Per Serving
Calories 290    Calories from Fat 80
Total Fat           9g    14%
    Saturated Fat   4.5g  23%
    Trans Fat       0g
Cholesterol         35mg  12%
Sodium              400mg 17%  360mg 15%

Total Carbohydrate    49g 16%  46g 15%
Dietary Fiber          0g  0%
Sugars                35g      33g
Protein                2g

Vitamin A   0%
Calcium     2%
Vitamin C   0%
Iron        6%  4%

The Caseinates were used to improve sponge texture and uniformity, to increase cake volume, and as an aid to ingredient dispersion in batter mixing. The 10% sodium reduction possibly resulted not so much from less salt being added, and more from elimination of the sodium caseinate.
 
The soy protein isolate worked with the caseinates and whey as a milk replacer in the cake formula. Soy flour is an old-school enzyme-active additive still widely used to retard staling in breads and other baked goods. Both soy protein ingredients are therefore gone—maybe part of a long-term soy-free market strategy? Change to canola oil and non-soy lecithin and they’re there.

Possibly the Enriched Wheat Flour content has been reduced (is wheat more expensive than corn starch?), as suggested by the drop in iron content and 1g-decrease in non-sugar total carbohydrate.
 

Pulling Out All the Stops: “Freshness” or Bust

The bacterial slime Xanthan gum hydrocolloid was likely added to compensate for the change in batter and/or cake properties resulting from the changeover in shelf-life extension additives; also, xanthan itself is known to retard starch retrogradation, the baking industry's two-dollar jargon for staling.

The non-hydrogenated and ultra-cheap Soybean oil also helps keeps things soft, while amounts of other ingredients have been juggled to keep the fat percentage unchanged.

The Enzyme ingredient now listed may comprise one or more bacterial and/or fungal enzymes—alpha amylase, lipase, phospholipase, etc.—that modify complex starch-sugar-fat batter chemistries, enhancing initial crumb softness and moisture retention, and retarding the staling that leads over time to brittle, crumbly cake texture.

Such enzymes, heavily promoted over the last 5-7 years or so by the Usual Suspects in factory-food chemicals manufacturing, offer a solution to exactly the production and price pressures that helped drive Old Hostess into the ground.

Something to watch for in future revisions of the Twinkies ingredients labels—well, who doesn’t keep track of them?—would be the disappearance of Enzyme from the list. This does not necessarily mean that they stopped using enzymes, but rather that they were able to change the formulation or successfully petition the FDA to permit reclassification of them as processing aids, and therefore don’t have to list them. Sneaky, no?

But then again, given Hostess’ all-out imperative to extend shelf life, “enzyme” is likely to persist indefinitely. It is worth bearing in mind that “enzyme” is in fact an FDA-sanctioned synonym for “fungal alpha-amylase”, an enzyme produced from factory-scale vats of fungus, and which remains active post-baking to retard staling.
 
The Glycerin was surely added as a humectant to attract and retain moisture, again for shelf-life extension. In fact, glycerin has traditionally been added to wedding- and Madeira-cake batters so the cakes stay “fresh” longer. And as the Twinkies’ sugar content seems to have dropped 2g per serving, the glycerin’s sweetness could partially compensate for any loss in sugar-sweetness.

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Next: Sensory Evaluation of New vs. Old Twinkies

Nahhh... what would be the point?

Beekeeping for Poets

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