Paul Hollywood Called This Quintessential American Dessert 'Awful' & 'Really Bad' (2024)

Listen up, Great British Baking Show contestants: you're not going to score a patented Paul Hollywood handshake for any Twinkie dupes.

The notoriously critical judge opened up about his disdain for the quintessential American dessert with The New York Post, and let's just say, his mind seems set. "Oh, they're awful," Paul Hollywood said of Hostess Twinkies, which he tried for the first time during a trip to New York last year. "They're really bad."

Despite the GBBS host's dislike for the Hostess snack, he is a fan of the UK's own (*cough, cough* rather similar) packaged treat, called a Yum Yum. "[It's] like a laminated dough, which you deep-fry like a donut and you cover it with a lemon icing," he told the outlet. "Calorific wise, it's probably about 2,000 calories. It's ridiculous, but if I'm in a supermarket and see it pre-packed, I'm going to quietly put it in my basket."

Now, this is hardly the first time Hollywood has dissed American desserts. Just last year, the television personality said he wasn't exactly fond of our portion sizes.

"[American baking] is a little bit sweeter than British baking," he said. "I also think that American bakers tend to celebrate whichever area they’re from in the United States...However sweet they are, I do enjoy them. I just can’t take the portion sizes that get offered. That’s all."

Fellow judge Prue Leith chimed in with her own thoughts. "One of the things that struck me, first of all, is the greater tolerance for sugar than there is in Europe," she chimed in. "Not everything, but it often is too sweet for me."

All that's to say, Hollywood is a fan of *some* American delicacies. In fact, he told Tasting Table that "apple pie from the South was mind-blowing" and that the "best" bagels he's had "have been in New York, for breakfast, with everything fully loaded."

We'll have to agree to disagree on the Twinkies, though, k?