Redesigning Dunkaroo's 🍪
Turning American Classics Asian, Season 2 Premiere!!
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Turning American Classic’s Asian: Dunkaroos
Dunkaroos has been on my list for a while to redesign. A simple package of crisp, shortbread cookies and painfully sweet icing the texture of toothpaste that the little Midwest boy in me can’t help but love. There were two things I wanted to address if I were to make my own Dunkaroos: making the icing into something lighter and more tart, and turning the brand into something that made sense with the dunking metaphor. (Dunkaroos is based off of a Kangaroo mascot being dunked in icing?!)
Turning it Asian ✌️
The first step was figuring out what was being dunked. When I think of Asians and what they love to be dunked in, my first and only thought was the beloved ritual of dunking their naked ass bodies into searing hot water at an Asian bathhouse. And with that inspiration, I was set on a quest to turn Dunkaroos into an Asian bathhouse themed snack. I started with the cookie, sesame shortbread whose design ended up looking like a prepubescent snowman.
I went in thinking I wanted to make an abstracted version of people, simplifying their features to geometric shapes that hinted at “human”.
I consulted my baking expert Lauren Ko as we spent a couple hours testing different character designs as we gave them hair, noses, mouths, and eyeballs. After baking them off though, I sort of realized, damn, all these look like little children, and that’s creepy hahah. I had a realization that I needed to commit to the bit. If I’m going to make cookies that resembled Asians at the bathhouse, I need to truly make them resemble the Asian aunties and uncles that frequent them, boobies and nipples and all.
The second step was figuring out the “dunk” in Dunkaroos, aka the icing. The current experience feels like dipping a sugar cookie into cup of Colgate toothpaste on funfetti steroids, and so I wanted to make an icing that was much fluffier while still retaining some heftiness to be able to stick a cookie in and have it sit up. So I went with a cream cheese/whipped cream hybrid. To flavor it, I wanted two flavors that could give it some acidity so your mouth doesn’t feel like it’s pulverized with sugar: blackberry yuzu (blackberries, sugar, yuzu, and a little miso folded into cream) and peach lychee (peaches, canned lychee, a little miso, folded into cream).
Making the packaging 📦
I wanted the packaging to feel like the old Asian bathhouses I remember visiting when vacationing in Asia, the ones where you walk in and it’s just floor to ceiling square tiles and a tub in the middle, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to technically make it out of paper.
The first prototype was giving goo goo ga ga baby..hahah..but the idea was there!! I felt like I was onto something.
After prototyping a simple open box with tile, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to make it feel “bathtub”. I would need to get more technical and make an actual “tub” set into the box, which would require a little bit of paper engineering.
The tile sizes and the tub were feeling pretty good! Next it was onto the lid, which would show the branding and also cover the cream and cookies inside the tub.
Naming the redesign is always tricky..sometimes it comes naturally, other times I’m texting friends asking for their most ridiculous ideas. Bathhouse Dunkies? Geriatric Gluten Globs?? I ended up going with a Chinese inspired name, “Pao Pao’s”, which literally translates to “soak soak” but also is a double entendre that means “bubbles”, cute right?!
Introducing, Pao Pao’s! 🛁
The final design! An Asian bathhouse themed cookies and cream brand that celebrates the ritual of getting butt ass naked and soaking in a tub of peach lychee or blackberry yuzu cream with your friends, co-workers, or whoever you love to relax with.
Each package comes with a bag of diverse sesame shortbread cookies that come in plain sesame, cinnamon sesame, or sesame chocolate.
Yes. those are boobies. I tried to make different shapes and sizes because booby representation!!
You can dip them to eat right away or let them take a relaxing soak in their creamy, sprinkle filled bath tubs for later.
It felt so wrong to eat the nipples off of these cookies hahaha, but the crispness of the sesame cookie paired with the lightness of cream was a childhood dream come true. Honestly, if my parents saw Asian bathhouse cookies in an American grocery store, I know they would 100% buy them, their humor is just us unserious and unhinged as mine. ❤️
Can I buy these!?
I will be making a limited amount of Pao Pao’s packaging with recipe cards (unfortunately I can’t ship cream hah and those cookies take forever!) that you can make the cream and recreate your own version of the cookies with! If you’re subscribed, you’ll be the first to know when they become available to purchase later this month!
✌️ Frankie
I love reading through your process and seeing your notes-- super inspiring!!
Omg yay hi! Welcome to Substack. So fun to get a behind the scenes look!