more hostess rambling

By Todd Stadler · Monday, April 9, 2001 6:01pm

I love Gerry Toll. He is one of few people that can revel in my discovery of previously-unknown Hostess snack cakes with me. And not only that, but participate in my Hostess science with me.

See, after eating a nice meal at the Blind Onion and psychoanalyzing our friends, we headed on over to my house for some good old-fashioned Hostess-snarfing.

I took lots of photos, and we even made some movies. Well, sort of - my camera makes really huge, pretty crappy videos. All of which will get put up on this site someday. Until then, I will think fondly on this night, and the many things I learned.

Such as the fact that Baseballs and Hoppers taste the same, and almost the same as a Golden Cupcake. Considering the radically different colors of frosting on each product, well, this isn't such a shock.

But as if I hadn't learned enough (or blabbed enough) about Hostess products, I also saw for the first time (and therefore purchased) a new Hostess doughnut - a jelly-filled doughnut, to be exact.

Of course, anyone familiar with Hostess doughnuts knows they taste like foam padding, but as a scientist, I cannot be deterred by such opinions. And as a scientist, I have to admit these doughnuts have me baffled.

The picture on the package shows a near-perfectly toroidal doughnut filled with a perfectly concentric ring of jelly. How did it get there? How indeed! For when I took out a doughnut, there were no telltale jelly-injection points, much like one finds on a Twinkie to account for its creamy middle.

Was the doughnut then baked around the jelly? Was this accomplished using magnetic levitation? Really? What is Hostess doing in possession of such powerful machinery, and could it be used to create a cold fusion generator?