Hostess "Sweetest Comeback" Review

Let me give some background and thoughts on me and Hostess. Like any big fat fatty I have consumed more than my share of their snacks. Ding Dongs were in every lunch my mom packed for me for school. Chocolate Donettes were on my desk for every all-nighter cram session during high school and college. Sharing a box of Honey Glazed Donuts became a thing my best buddy and I started doing anytime either of us got dumped by a girl. And Hostess Cupcakes have become one of my favorite snacks.

So when it was announced that they were going away I was a little upset. I’ll be honest. I felt sad. I wasn’t an idiot like so many who went out and stocked piled them. That was mostly people who probably hadn’t eaten a Hostess snack in years but when learning they were going away suddenly felt compelled to start buying them. Probably spent $100 on Twinkies, got them home, all giggly they opened them up, took their first bite and remembered “Oh ya, this is why I never buy these things.” And now had $100 worth to go through. Idiots.

But in the months (or years?? I don’t know and I’m not bothering to look it up) since they went away guess what? I haven’t missed them one bit. If I had the urge for something sugary, there’s always something. The vacuum was filled so quickly with other contenders that it just didn’t matter that Hostess was gone. Honestly the thing that bothered me the most was the loss of Country Pride Split Top Wheat Bread. I loved that stuff and have not found a suitable replacement. Oh well.

So Hostess Snacks are back at least the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria of their fleet is back with others to soon follow. But I didn’t run out and get any. What I did was bump into them on Friday while at my favorite convenience store stocking up on snacks for my weekend alone (wife and kids went to visit family out of state). There they were, back in all their glory. “The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever”. Clever marketing I think. I mean it’s cute, but if you’re trying to peddle stuff that has white creme in the center, you should never use the word come. I’m just saying.

But I digress. I did not buy Twinkies. Twinkies maybe their flagship product but they are disgusting, meaningless, worthless globs of nothingness. Yuck. Not yuck actually, just nothing. What I did buy was 3 of my favorite snack standbys. All with the express intent of reviewing them. I could have just as easily bought something else but I thought “what the heck” and bought an Apple Pie, a 6-Pack of Chocolate Donettes and my favorite – Cupcakes. Even the teenage girl who rung them up made a big deal about them. “Oh I’m so glad their back. I missed them so much.” I replied, “I’m so sorry, how did you ever survive.” She retorted “$6.50 fatass!” Just another woman who can’t have me.

That night I tried the Apple Pie. I opened it, took a few bites and must say it was very tasty. It had the exact same texture and flavor I remembered. It was dark in the room as I watched TV and honestly I got halfway through it before I realized something was wrong. I flipped on the light and looked closer. See I had gotten halfway through before realizing I had not bit into a single apple. Not one. I always questioned whether they were real apples or not and decided it didn’t matter. But to not even try to fake me out is insulting to my intellect. I eventually found 1 or 2 tiny chunks of apple but that was it. In the whole pie. Another thing I noticed was there seemed to be much more glaze on the outside, no doubt to mask the fact that they had cut the apple content (IN THEIR APPLE PIE) by at least 67%. They tasted good but you will have to recalibrate your expectations when going to eat them.

Saturday I ate the Donettes. These have always been creepy yet decadent little morsels of deliciousness. Little round nubs of dry cake coated in a waxy shell of chocolate, but by golly I loved eating them. I’ve devoured whole “family-sized” boxes of them all by myself. These have not changed in flavor one little bit. They are still amazingly awesome. Now of course one thing I did notice but it’s not really a show-stopper. These were never perfectly round donuts. I was never under the impression that over-all looks was a big concern with Hostess but at least they tried to make them round and mostly smooth. If Hostess products were humans, these Donettes would be the family from The Hills Have Eyes. They were deformed and misshapen and just weird. But they tasted good. Eat these in the dark.

Sunday I ate the Cupcakes. Yep. I kept the best for last. So far I had been satisfied with my Hostess “Resurrection Tour”. I opened them up and was surprised because I had gotten use to the chocolate frosting from breaking off and getting everywhere. Not with these 2. They stayed on top throughout my consumption of them. What really upset me is they tasted like complete arse. I’m not sure what Hostess did, but trust me…despite what they are claiming, they changed something. These were bitter, like not enough sugar or too much cocoa powder or something. But I could barely get through them. Perhaps it’s like when you season a pan it cooks food better. Perhaps those old Hostess production lines after 50 years or so had developed the perfect layer of gunk on them to produce what we had come to expect. I’m afraid that is gone forever.

Which leads to my point. Who cares? I don’t like their cupcakes, well I guess I’ll have to choose something else next time. No big deal. Hostess you went out of business for a lot of reasons but one of those reasons is people really stopped giving a damn about you and your products. You will most likely fail again because the rush on your products now will soon come to an end. Your death this time will be more like Brett Favre’s second retirement. Your “comeback” (hee hee I said …. nevermind) scores only 2 stars.