Hostess Shamrock Cupcakes: It's Nice & Easy Being Green

The Novelty Items Keep Rolling Out
It's been a dizzying five years since the original Hostess Snack Cake company, then doing business under the legal ownership of Interstate Bakeries Corporation, shuttered operations.  Resurrected by private equity in July 2013 it grew so rapidly that its new owners were able to cash out and take the company public in 2016, and now Hostess Brands trades under the charming ticker symbol TWNK.

One great gift of Hostess' modernization of manufacturing and distribution has been the steady stream of seasonal novelty items that their nimble reprogrammable machines can now spit out.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and other major holidays all get unique-themed snack cakes and confections.  There are so many, in fact, that the Food Kingdom can hardly keep up.  For instance, we tried their delightfully rich, berry-infused, dark chocolate Valentine's Day cupcakes and were all set to sing their praises.  Alas, various delays prevented a full review from being ready before Valentine's Day, and by the time we were set to write a full review, they had mostly disappeared from shelves.  You can still find them at random service stations and convenience stores, though, so if you see 'em, snatch 'em.

Blink and you'll miss them: this limited-edition Chocolate-Raspberry Cupcake, released for Valentine's Day, had a mature taste and a dark richness that was utterly appropriate for the day of love.  You could have served it without embarrassment as the climax of a romantic dinner.  Its berry notes would pair well with a lush California red. Note the sticky/chewy texture of the moist fondant icing.

St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes: Making a Mint
Showing that it's agile enough to spin off variations for second-tier holidays, Hostess was able to place these "Shamrock Cupcakes" on the shelves about three weeks in advance of St. Patrick's Day.  Since the only unbending requirement for this day is that the snack cake incorporate green, they did have some flavor decisions to make.  Would they go with lime? Spinach? Jalapeño peppers and cabbage?  Wisely, they synched up with the McDonald's tradition of the Shamrock Shake and went with mint, pairing it with chocolate.

The now-publicly-traded Hostess Brands comes off as a place where the employees enjoy themselves, a place where graphic designers gleefully concoct new just-in-time packaging for the next creative bakery item that comes out of product development.

Different From the Default in Almost Every Way
If the only Hostess Cupcake you've ever had is the classic chocolate version of your childhood, you'll be in no way prepared for these new editions, which vary in crucial respects.  The most dramatic difference is in the frosting.  Normal Hostess frosting is rigid and somewhat crumbly, a strange hybrid between a fondant and a crunchy sugar crust; it's more brittle than chewy.  The icing on these Shamrock cakes is moister, more flexible, and somewhat tacky to the touch.  Further, it has a pronounced mint flavor, asserting the minty identity of the cake from the first taste.

Though it looks a bit like grandma's naugahyde couch covering, take note of the moist shine of the fondant icing.  It's a clue to its sensual, stretchy, chewiness.  This minty icing is one that you could enjoy peeling off and eating on its own.

The cake is different too.  Like the chocolate-raspberry cupcake mentioned above, the chocolate taste is stronger and darker and the crumb is denser and more moist, with an intensity and chewiness that marries well with its canopy of mint icing.  Indeed, the cake crumb is so moist that parts of it broke off and stuck to the plate where we placed it.  The green mint-creme filling adds another fresh, reinforcing blast of coolness, tying together the other elements into a luscious chocolate-mint unity.

Enlarged to show texture.  We can see all the relevant parts in harmony with each other.  The flexibility of the mint fondant gripping the moist and porous chocolate crumb matrix while the whipped mint creme explodes out from the center. If you're giving up voluptuousness for Lent, you'll have to keep these in the freezer til after Easter.

Conclusions

On the big green day, we recommend children enjoy these with a peppermint hot chocolate.  Adults during the day might pair them with a peppermint mocha.  Adults after dark would surely enjoy this with a hot Irish coffee, or maybe even a straight shot of Bushmills.

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