Upgrade Copycat Hostess Cupcakes With Homemade Whipped Cream

Growing up, some of our favorite items in our school lunch bag were plastic-wrapped Hostess snacks. Ding Dongs, HoHos, Snoballs, and Twinkies were always a welcome treat, but it was the chocolate-flavored CupCakes that we really wanted. Chocolate cake, chocolate icing, sweet fluffy center, and the familiar white icing squiggles along the top. Regardless of what else was packed, the sweet dessert usually signaled a good lunch.

But as parents making lunches for their own kids, many have second thoughts about packing a processed product filled with ingredients we don't recognize. Luckily, Mashed recipe developer Molly Allen has a copycat Hostess cupcake recipe made with homemade whipped cream, so you can feel good knowing exactly what's in the dessert you're sending for lunch.

The cupcakes take less than half an hour to prepare, with the mixing of the whipped cream filling accounting for a little less than half that time. It consists of a mere three ingredients: heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. The most arduous part of making homemade whipped cream for our copycat Hostess Cupcakes is the actual whipping of the heavy cream, which is also the part you don't want to cut corners on. It typically takes eight to ten minutes with a stand or hand mixer to whip the heavy cream to the smooth and fluffy texture needed for the recipe.

You could always buy a pre-made whipped cream for the copycat Hostess cupcake recipe, but why would you want to? Heavy cream has a higher percentage of fat than whipping cream, which makes for a sturdier final product that is best for filling your copycat Hostess Cupcakes. There's also the issue of added ingredients.

Even Reddi-Wip, which is advertised as being made with real cream, still contains extra ingredients like corn syrup, natural flavor, monoglycerides, diglycerides, and carrageenan. Carrageenan, a food additive and thickening agent made from red seaweed, has been at the center of debates over whether it causes inflammation, and if it can increase the chances of colon cancer and irritable bowel syndrome (via Healthline).

Plus, homemade whipped cream simply tastes better, and you feel good knowing what you're putting into your body. Unlike Hostess Cupcakes, which have a much longer shelf life, recipe developer Molly Allen reminds us that "by adding a fresh whipped cream filling to the center of these chocolate cupcakes, it no longer makes them stable at room temperature." However, the cupcakes will last for two or three days if they're stored in a sealed container in the fridge.