For most people, elementary school was a time of learning, exploration, and growth. For me, it was about the joy of finding a cellophane-wrapped Twinkie in my lunch box. Or a Hostess Cupcake. Or a Wagon Wheel. If grades were given out for glucose-fructose and guar gum consumption, I would’ve been the smartest kid in class.

But I wondered how these lunch box pastries would hold up all these years later. And I also wondered: What would a master baker have to say about them? So I enlisted CBC’s The Great Canadian Baking Show finalist, Colin Asuncion, to help me out. Not only is Colin a talented baker, he’s also a fantastic singer and actor, and works as a marketing professional. We’re talking a quadruple threat of talent. (I first met Colin when he performed in my play, Box 4901. He brought homemade cookies to rehearsals. Needless to say, I fell in love.)

Colin and I separately taste-tested and ranked 10 store-bought pastries, most of which were by the Vachon company. This Québec-based company has been around since 1923 and corner the commercial pastry market here in Canada. But we also invited Hostess and Little Debbie to the party.

So which lunch box pastry creamed the competition? And which pastry fell flat? Our investigative report follows.

Billot Log

Brian: I have zero memory of these growing up. I also don’t know if the word “billot” should rhyme with “pillow” or “thought.” In any case, I’ve seen a lot of glowing pink logs in my day, but these took the cake. Literally. I was also a bit hesitant as shredded coconut always gets stuck in my teeth.

Colin: I love the look of this thing. It’s bright, fun, and flirty. It looks like a strawberry coconut roulade and I am HERE for that journey. I had never heard of these before this test so I’m excited to dig in.

Tasting notes

Brian: The Billot Log is basically a neon jelly roll. It was moist and had the right amount of squish. The layer of jelly provided a tangy contrast to the vanilla cake and there was a decent blanket of cream throughout. This was like a ramped-up Twinkie. The only downside? Picking coconut out of my teeth for the rest of the day.

Colin: I LOVE IT. The coconut smell is strong and delightful. I was expecting the cake inside to be pink but it’s actually a classic yellow cake. What a twist. And speaking of twist, the roulade has a nice tight swirl. I love the texture of the coconut coating and the cake itself is decent. I’d like more flavour out of the jam but that’s my only qualm. This is a real winner.

Twinkie

Brian: When I was a kid, I’d get excited whenever the Twinkie the Kid cowboy commercial came on TV. Maybe it had more to do with the cowboy than the Twinkie. In any case, when it comes to lunch box pastries, you can’t get more iconic than a cream-filled Twinkie. But is that reputation earned?

Colin: This was the most iconic lunch box pastry of my childhood and yet I rarely ate them. My mother instead opted for the ½ Moon for my packed desserts, which always felt kind of alternative. At the time, I wished she would just buy Twinkies so I could be more mainstream.

Tasting notes

Brian: For starters, I don’t remember Twinkies being this small. And the cream filling left a coating on my tongue like the cheap frosting they put on grocery store birthday cakes. The cake was dry and didn’t have a lot of flavour. I’m sorry, pardner, but it’s time this Twinkie moseyed off into the sunset.

Colin: I can now say with confidence that my mother made the right choice in avoiding Twinkies. The yellow fingie smells overwhelmingly sweet upon opening the package. The cake is very dense. The cream filling is pleasantly marshmallowy but the entire confection leaves a film at the back of my throat and an unpleasant aftertaste. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I hate it.

Hostess Cupcakes

Brian: These little brown pucks have been knocking around in lunch boxes since kids rode donkeys to school. An added bonus is that you get two in every package. While the swirl of white frosting is the hallmark of a Hostess Cupcake, one of mine looked like someone on the frosting line sneezed mid-swirl.

Colin: I mean, are these really cupcakes? Because they don’t look like cupcakes to me. I always hated the aesthetic – like two-bite brownies that someone tried to gussy up with a chocolate dip and haphazard squiggle of white. The prospect of eating one does not spark joy.

Tasting notes

Brian: These little cakes were damp and chocolate-y although who couldn’t use another squirt of cream in their cupcake? Not the best, but nothing to complain about either. I was going to save the cupcake with the screwed-up icing and sell it on eBay as an art piece, but my husband ate it. There goes my early retirement.

Colin: I like the density of the cake, but that’s about it. It tastes stale, overly sweet (trend alert), and like imitation chocolate flavouring. The miscellaneous white cream filling is unpleasant. I wasn’t a fan of these as a kid and I’m not a fan now.

Ah Caramel!

Brian: That disc on top of the Ah Caramel! reminded me of when they put things like frisbees in the backs of mice to grow skin over it. And I’ve always thought the name was a bit weird. Are you supposed to scream the “ah?” Or is more of a sigh? Or is it more like the sound a scientist makes when they discover how to grow a human ear on a mouse’s back?

Colin: This is the one I was REALLY dreading. I have memories of swapping my ½ Moon to try a friend’s Ah Caramel! and being immediately consumed with regret after the first bite. I dislike the look of these – like a large Lego piece that has been put in the microwave and covered in brown paint. But looks aren’t everything. Let’s see if I still hate this as an adult.

Tasting notes

Brian: While the caramel didn’t ooze out like the box photo would have me believe, the Ah Caramel! delivered a multi-tiered punch. You get the sponge cake, the ring of frosting and the caramel filling inside of that. Top that off with your chocolate-y coating and you’ve got four times the flavour. While a little sweet for me, it still tasted ah-mazing.

Colin: I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it. I will say that the square of cake is neat and tidy, but it is dry and ridiculously sweet (again, trend alert). Then you have a disc of white frosting AND caramel, making this a complete sugar overload. This isn’t the worst of the lunch box pastries, but if this was presented to me at the end of a meal, I would gladly skip dessert.

Brian: Remind me to never have Colin over for dinner.

1/2 Moon

Brian: ½ Moons always seemed boring to me. Why have something vanilla when it could be dipped in brown wax? But maybe I was being too judgemental. And I wondered how the ½ Moon would hold up against its nearest counterpart – the Twinkie?

Colin: This is the snack cake I ate most as a kid. It is pure nostalgia for me which means the stakes are extremely high. Will I enjoy this cake as an adult? Will my childhood palate betray me? Let’s find out.

Tasting notes

Brian: This ½ Moon was a little bit of heaven. Simple, predictable, and with zero surprises. In other words, exactly like my middle-aged personality. And, yes, the ½ Moon kicked Twinkie’s butt. The cake had better flavour (just look at the golden crust!), it was moister, and it had a tastier cream filling. ½ Moon, you’ve got me swinging from the stars.

Colin: This is it, baby. It’s no wonder why my mother selected this as my most frequent lunch box dessert. The cake smells great, is nice and soft, and has a lovely natural colour. It actually tastes like REAL cake, unlike most of the other confections in this test. It has a bit more salt, counterbalancing the sweet filling nicely. The overall flavour is simultaneously delicate and decadent. I love. I stan. This is the moment. This is the one.

Wagon Wheel

Brian: Like Flintstones vitamins, Wagon Wheels have been a staple in kids’ diets for generations. I have fond memories of them. That chocolate, marshmallow, and graham cookie combo could make the worst school days seem a bit brighter. Then again, I also used to dip my finger in Jell-O powder as a snack, so my standards were low.

Colin: Yet another dessert I never ate as a kid. It looks neat and tidy and I like the size of it. The chocolate is nice and firm. Upon initial examination, I think I’m going to like this.

Tasting notes

Brian: Dang if these didn’t shrink! I know my hands are bigger now, but these wheels looked more like buttons! And mine resembled a melted top hat. In terms of taste, the Wagon Wheel fell flat. A dry cookie sandwich with a marshmallow centre that had more bounce than a mattress, the Wagon Wheel is best left to pioneer times.

Colin: I did not like this. The chocolate is straight up bad and the cookie tastes like, well, nothing. The marshmallow is decent – nice and bouncy – but that’s not enough to save the Wagon Wheel. I had high hopes, but sadly this is not the one.

Passion Flakie

Brian: As a kid, I had a very specific way of eating Passion Flakies. I’d separate the top and bottom layers, pick off the flaky crust and then lick the whipped cream/jelly filling from the bottom. I suppose it’s no wonder most kids avoided me at lunch. Of all the lunch box pastries, Flakie always seemed the most sophisticated (despite how I ate them). But would that sophistication hold up?

Colin: Along with the ½ Moon, the Passion Flakie made regular appearances in my lunch bag growing up. I always looked forward to eating one of these lil cuties.

Tasting notes

Brian: The first thing I got was the feathery crumpling of that sugar-crusted top layer, followed by the hit of cream and raspberry/apple jelly, before my teeth sunk into the soft and chewy bottom layer. A hands-down winner. Passion Flakie, I wish I held up as good as you over the years.

Colin: The Passion Flakie is smaller than I remember, but I guess all these treats are. The pastry itself exhibits decent lamination (layers) but is quite pale and has no flavour. The jam flavour is not discernable as any specific fruit – it just tastes generically sweet. The mouth feel is simultaneously gummy and dry. I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

Jos Louis

Brian: In all my enriched wheat years, I never noticed that the “Jos” in Jos Louis is spelled like that. Apparently, it’s named after two of the Vachon sons, Joseph and Louis. (In case that wasn’t clear.) These chocolate-y covered cakes are coveted by kids and adults alike, but how would it hold up against the other pastries?

Colin: This was another classic treat when I was growing up, and another dessert that I rarely ate. It never really appealed to me – didn’t look interesting or appetizing, and it still doesn’t.

Tasting notes

Brian: The first thing I noticed was the reddish colour of the cake. Was it supposed to be red velvet, I wondered? Colour aside, the cake was soft with a thick layer of cream. Jos, you’re a classic for good reason, however you spell your name.

Colin: As Brian notes, the Jos Louis cake is borderline red velvet but not quite there. It’s overly sweet, strangely soft, and the chocolate coating doesn’t have a great flavour. The Jos Louis isn’t awful, but I’d rather have a Mae West.

Frosted Fudge Cake

Brian: I’m not overly familiar with the Little Debbie brand, but judging by her picture on the box, she must be about 103 by now.

Still, the name alone was enough to pique my curiosity. I mean, Frosted Fudge Cakes? That’s like a haiku, less a few syllables. Could Little Debbie be the underdog in a straw hat?

Colin: This looks like a candy bar. I’m worried.

Tasting notes

Brian: While I appreciated the artistic lattice design on the top of the cake, Little Debbie didn’t deliver. I found it dry and not as chocolate-y as its nearest cousin, the Hostess cupcake. The chocolate coating also tasted too waxy for me. Sorry, Little Debbie, but you’ll have to do better if you want to play in the big leagues.

Colin: OK, this is quite good. Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. The cake and filling have a nice cocoa flavour and aren’t overly sweet (which is what I was worried about). And speaking of the interior, this is the only chocolate cream filling in this test and it is by far the best filling in this test – sorry, miscellaneous white cream. The only thing I would change is the chocolate coating – a darker chocolate would provide better flavour balance.

Mae West

Brian: I’ve come across a lot of tasty broads in my day, but never a Mae West. I guess Mae is like a Jos Louis, only it’s got a custard filling and a vanilla cake. That got me thinking. The Vachon people need to invent a chocolate cake with a custard filling and call it the Mae Louis.

Colin: I had also never heard of these. It looks identical to a Jos Louis, if a bit darker. The aesthetic is sad. It’s like a cookie sat on top of a rice cake and was spray painted brown. I’m not super excited to eat this.

Brian: While Mae’s looks didn’t exude Hollywood glamour, she tasted like a million bucks. The custard was a nice change from all the cream I’d been inhaling, but I didn’t think it had much flavour. I preferred it to the Jos Louis, but then again, I’ve always been a sucker for a dame with good taste.

Colin: The dominant flavour is the chocolate from the coating and that’s not a bad thing at all. I like that it’s semisweet chocolate because the vanilla cake and filling are plenty sweet on their own. The textural contrast between the soft interior and hard chocolate shell gives the Mae West a dynamic mouth feel. I’m into it.

Okay, so here are our individual rankings, worst to best:

Brian

10. Wagon Wheel

9. Frosted Fudge Cake

8. Twinkie

7. Billot Log

6. Hostess Cupcakes

5. Jos Louis

4. Mae West

3. ½ Moon

2. Ah Caramel!

1. Flakie

Colin

10. Hostess Cupcake

9. Twinkie

8. Ah Caramel!

7. Wagon Wheel

6. Flakie

5. Jos Louis

4. Mae West

3. Frosted Fudge Cake

2. Billot Log

1. ½ Moon

While Colin and I slap it out over Little Debbie, feel free to leave your own comments about which you feel is the best lunch box pastry. So long as it’s not a Twinkie.

And remember: A lunch box without a cellophane-wrapped pastry isn’t lunch. It’s sadness.

Thanks for reading! Check out Colin’s Instagram (if you want to see some spectacular real-life pastries) as well as his YouTube channel and his Twitter to keep up to date on everything he’s got cookin’. Meanwhile, I’m going to keep working on this appetizer platter before attempting to squeeze into my new GWGs. Wish me luck.