Home Latin American Mexican El Gansito Gigante ~ The Giant Gansito

El Gansito Gigante ~ The Giant Gansito

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Gansito ~ The Mexican Twinkie

A Gansito is a small Mexican snack cake, often compared to the American Twinkie. This Mexican Recipe is a strawberry jelly and crème-filled pound cake with a chocolate-flavored coating. This cake will obviously be much bigger (Gigante) than the store-bought size but it contains the same delicious ingredients.


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El Gansito Gigante ~ The Giant Gansito

To bite into a Gansito Snack Cake is to bite into something inherently Hispanic.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword Cake, Chocolate, Cream Cheese, Strawberry
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Resting Time 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings 1 cake
Author Mike Gonzalez

Ingredients

Cake Base:

  • 1 loaf pound cake

Jelly Filling:

  • 1 cup strawberry jam
  • 2 tbsp corn starch
  • 3 tbsp cold water

Cream Filling:

  • ½ bar cream cheese
  • ½ cup confectioners sugar
  • ½ cup whipping cream

Icing:

  • 2 cups chocolate chips
  • cup whipping cream
  • chocolate sprinkles

Instructions

Cake Base:

  • Cut a trinch down the middle of the pound cake. It should have 1 inch around the sides and ⅓ down into the cake.
  • Remove cake from the trench and set asside.

Jelly Filling:

  • Add Jelly, starch, and water to a cooking pan and mix well while heating.
  • Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Cream Filling:

  • In a mixing bowl add cream cheesing and confectioners sugar. Mix well until combined then add the whipping cream while continuing to mix until a light fluffy consistency is achieved.
  • Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Icing:

  • In a pan slowly heat whipping cream but do not boil.
  • Put the chocolate chips into a mixing bowl and pour the warm whipping cream over the chocolate and mix until all the chocolate chips are melted.
  • Allow to cool for 5 or 10 minutes before using.

Assemble the Cake:

  • Place filling mix into the trench filling it about halfway up.
  • Place the cream mix into the trench filling it to the top.
  • Pour the Icing mix over the cake. Using an icing spatula, making sure the top and sides are completely covered.
  • Sprinkle the chocolate sprinkles on top.
  • Place in refrigerator for 20 minutes to solidify the icing. Cut and serve.

Did You Know?

Vintage Gansito Mexico Ad
Image by BeastJones – CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The Gansito Snack Cake was invented in Mexico City, Mexico in 1957. Alfonso Velasco invented the original recipe for the snack cake, while Victor Milke, Guadalupe Pérez, and Roberto Servitje designed the molds necessary to produce the snack cake. At first, the molds only made two Gansito Snack Cakes at a time; today’s can create 18 at the same time.

It was one of the first three, individually wrapped snack cakes produced at the Marinela factory, and the first order made at the factory was for 500 Gansito Snack Cakes which took eight hours to create.

The Gansito Snack Cake took precedence in the Marinela Brand, and Lorenzo Servitje and Jaime Jorba, two of the original founders of Grupo Bimbo and Marinela, called Gansito Snack Cakes the star of Marinela products.

Image by BeastJones – CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Gansito Snack Cakes became Marinela’s product leader, representing 65% of all product sales. At first, it only cost consumers 80 cents, and by 1975 Marinela was selling 1 million Gansito Snack Cakes a day.

The snack cake soon became a beloved product and an all-time favorite in Mexico as Grupo Bimbo expanded through the country and created routes to even the most distant villages.

The popular Gansito Character that became a trademark of Marinela and decorates the snack cakes’ packaging was designed by Alfonso Velasco, who was one of Bimbo’s founders. Velasco also created the famous tagline, “¡Recuérdame!” which means, “Remember me!”

The dessert was first delivered by bicycles and then by unique, three-wheeled motor vans in Mexico called “ganseras.” The salesmen were nicknamed “ganseros”. The routes the ganseros sold Gansito Snack Cakes along were called, “rutas ganseras.”

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