The Discontinued Twinkie-Esque Snack We'll Probably Never Eat Again

In French author Marcel Proust's novel "In Search of Lost Time," the narrator bites into a madeleine cookie dipped in tea which sparks a recollection of his childhood which unfolds over the course of seven volumes. It's possible, given the opportunity to sink our teeth into a Hostess Leopard, we might experience our own Proustian flashback, glimpsing the whole of our past with 20/20 hindsight. Of course, the chances of that happening are slim to none. The Hostess Leopard, colorful cousin to the Twinkie, has been out of circulation since the early 2000s and currently resides, wraith-like, among the many discontinued Hostess snacks we'll probably never eat again.

Debuting in 1999, Hostess Leopards were essentially a Twinkie with small chocolate chips folded into the batter, resembling the spotted pattern of a leopard's hide (or an oval-shaped version of the British pudding spotted dick — or Spotted Richard, as it's known in the U.K. Parliament's dining room). 

According to the few media sources that mentioned it, Leopards had an orange hue which helped differentiate it from the golden-colored Twinkie. It was also softer and smaller than its better-known relation, but also decidedly less healthy. A single Leopard weighed 25% more than a Twinkie and had more fat, sugar, and calories. Though unconfirmed, it's not too great a leap to think that a Twinkie analog snack with even less nutritional value may have spelled its own demise.

Save for a few images of the box cover art and bullet point-style breakdowns of its appearance and ingredients, there is precious little information on Hostess Leopards. Due most likely to its relatively brief time on supermarket shelves, Leopards don't appear to have built the sort of devoted following enjoyed by other out-of-circulation snack cakes like the late, lamented Chocodile. 

Even Hostess's own history excludes Leopards. Despite being one of the first new products released by the company in nearly three decades, their snack chronology leaps from Zingers and HoHos in 1970 to the Celebratory Birthday CupCakes issued to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2019.

Still, there's always the chance Hostess could reverse this tragic course and revive Leopards for a new generation. After all, if you like Twinkies, doesn't it stand to reason you'd like one with chocolate chips even more? Hostess has brought back past products on several occasions, including Twinkies, Orange CupCakes, Zingers, and Ding Dongs after its resurrection from bankruptcy in 2013. It could modify the Leopards formula along the lines of its new candy bar-oriented cake, the Kazbar. As the saying goes, hope springs eternal, even for a snack with as unlucky a history as Hostess Leopards.