Rest easy, junk food fans: it seems that Hostess is in negotiations with its second-largest union, and the fate of the Twinkie may not yet be sealed [Ed. note: The latest update is looking bleak for Hostess again]. I’m thrilled that the workers might keep their jobs (albeit with lower salaries and fewer benefits), but really, at Thanksgiving of all seasons, we’re practically declaring a new national holiday over a snack cake?

So it seems. This week has seen an explosion of #twinkie GIFs and memes online, and a real-world rush on supermarkets, as panicked junk food junkies hauled out snack cakes by the case to ensure an enduring supply (good luck with that).

I will cop to a childhood taste for Hostess fruit pies (those little double-packed hand pies filled with gummy apples and cherries), but Twinkies never did it for me, and I don’t think I’ve had one since the mid 1970s. Why? Well, flavor, for one thing. Twinkies, with their 39 (thirty-nine!) ingredients are as processed as food comes.

But cake? Homemade cake? That I can get behind. And if what you crave is a cake that you can carry around with you, with its frosting neatly tucked away inside, dare I suggest that you take 45 minutes and ... make your own? My friend Alana Chernila, of the (fantastic, down to earth) food blog Eating From the Ground Up, shows you how in her cookbook The Homemade Pantry (see my earlier profile of Alana and the book). Her snack cakes are easy to make, and unlike Twinkies, there’s nothing you cannot pronounce in them.

Thanks to the folks at the Cooking Channel, Alana’s much-like-a-Twinkie snack cake recipe is available online. But with Thanksgiving around the corner, do yourself a favor and check out the whole book. If ever there is a time to opt for homemade food over industrialized “food,” it’s Thanksgiving.

Image: The Snack Cake