I heart Clare Crespo. I first saw her crocheted sushi and desserts in Bust magazine, then found her web site Yummy Fun with crazy and inventive recipes. She has two books The Secret Life of Food and Hey There, Cupcake!, both filled with exquisitely clever food ideas. She created a few things for Hostess, and it seems her Twinkie Sushi catches the fancy of most everybody.

I was invited to a sushi making party and I figured what better time to try the twinkie sushi. She has a sushi cupcake recipe in her book The Secret Life of Food that incorporates a Swedish fish atop a mound of rice, which I think is just so darn funny. You can see a picture of this half way down this Gothamist interview. (The recipe for these are also in the Feb/March 2005 Bust magazine.) But, I knew I wouldn’t have time to make little fake rice rectangles, so I used half of a Hostess powdered donette instead. I sliced just a little bit off of the top of the donut as well, it allows the fish to stay in place more easily.

Things I learned along the way. I read in someone elses experience that if you make the treats ahead of time and leave them at room temperature, the fruit roll ups can melt and become gooey. I made a few for a test run and left them in the fridge overnight, and while the fruit roll up didn’t actually melt it become more sticky and not as fun to eat. So, make these the day of and store them in the fridge. Shavings of dried mango or papaya can serve as slices of pickled ginger.

I could only find green fruit roll ups with punch out faces in them, it still worked ok. But, here is a recipe for apricot fruit leather, I’m sure adding a little food coloring would make a nice murky green. The fruit roll ups stick nicely to themselves, and stretch if they don’t quite reach all the way around a twinkie slice.

How do they taste? Not the greatest really, you’ll want to pick the components apart. But look how darn cute they are!

I found myself wondering what results you could get from dipping fruit in chocolate and slicing it — bananas, kiwi, strawberries. They all seem like they could make an interesting fruit sushi dessert.

There is a bunch of great faux sushi stuff I came across in my searches: