Back-to-School Pencil Twinkies Fun Food Craft Idea

Hooray! The day has arrived. My girl is officially off to middle school today. I really don’t know where the time has gone.

I don’t mean, where has the summer gone. It seems like we have had the longest summer ever this year. We were both completely ready for school to start.

I mean, where has my little girl who I vividly remember dropping off on her first day of kindergarten gone?

Today’s post is a throwback to my school days. My parents hardly ever bought Hostess Twinkies or Ho-Hos for us, but when they it, it was definitely a treat. And now that they are back on grocery shelves for “The Sweetest Comeback Ever”, I couldn’t resist buying a box. But, of course, I had to turn it into a fun food craft idea. That’s just what I do. =)

In honor of back-to-school, I turned Twinkies into “#2 Pencil Twinkies”.

I started with Hostess Twinkies, and added large marshmallows, chocolate chips, a little red food coloring, aluminum foil, and some black decorating gel.

The first step was to dye a few marshmallows reddish/pink—to match the color of the pencil’s pink eraser. I filled a ramekin with water, and mixed in a few drops of red food coloring to make the perfect color. Then I dip-dyed marshmallows and let dry.

Then I unwrapped the Twinkies and cut off a small slice off of each end. On one end I put the pink marshmallow eraser, and the other I made a marshmallow pencil tip.

I cut each pencil tip marshmallow to almost create a pyramid shape, and then a small snip at the top to place a chocolate chip, or the pencil lead.

The thing about marshmallows is that once you cut into them you reveal a sugary sticky edge.

I cut off a small slice from the “pencil tip” and the “eraser” to create a sticky surface and attached the ends of the Twinkie.

If you are serving these right away, it works great. You can also use a little bit of vanilla or white frosting as glue to attach the marsmallows.

To complete the food craft, I cut a small strip of aluminum foil, about 6″ x 3″, and folded each edge in to make a straight edge and wrapped around each Twinkie on the end by the eraser.

I finished off by drawing a #2 on the top with black decorator gel.

Come on, you cannot tell me that this isn’t a fun after school treat. = )

One tip, I found that these are best eaten shortly after making them. If they sit out for a long period of time, the Twinkies tend to dry out and not be the spongy goodness that they are meant to be.