‘This feels illegal’: The viral butter-dipped soft serve is a masterclass in uncomfortable food trends
Dominique Ansel gave us the Cronut. Now, the pastry mastermind is responsible for a dessert that feels less like a treat and more like a test of personal limits, and a threat to our collective cholesterol levels.
There’s a certain category of food that exists purely to make you say, “Who approved this?” Usually, it’s a questionable DIY hack buried deep on TikTok.
This time, the internet’s latest fixation is a real menu item from a high-end New York City bakery, and it’s making people feel deeply, physically uncomfortable.
Why This Butter-Dipped Cone Made People Stop Scrolling
The cone comes from Papa d’Amour, Ansel’s new Greenwich Village spot. On paper, the order sounds harmless enough: vanilla soft serve. The problem starts with the finish.
Instead of chocolate or caramel, the cone is plunged head-first into melted, bright yellow butter. It emerges coated in a glossy, waxy shell that looks more like a candle than dessert.
It doesn’t look bad. It looks wrong, and that’s exactly what makes people stop scrolling.
Why Butter on Ice Cream Triggers Such a Strong Reaction
In a viral video posted by creator Anne Abel, the reaction isn’t instant delight. It’s hesitation.
“It feels a little obscene,” she admits, joking that her arteries are “going into attack.” That’s why the clip works: we’re watching someone negotiate with themselves in real time.
This isn’t a butter-flavored shell, it’s actual butter. And even after admitting she struggled with the cold, fatty dip, Abel still gave it a 13 out of 10, a contradiction that sent the comment section into chaos.
The Internet Thinks It Might Be AI
The visual is so jarring that some viewers refused to believe it was real.
Because the butter is aggressively yellow and the ice cream stark white, comments quickly filled with accusations that the video, or even the couple in it, was AI-generated.
“You cannot prove to me this ain’t AI,” one commenter wrote.
Others went straight to gallows humor. “My cholesterol went up just watching this,” another joked.
The reality is stranger than a deepfake: people are paying real money to bite into a cold shell of butter.
Why This Cone Is Everywhere
So why is this butter-dipped soft serve all over TikTok? Because it creates tension.
We love butter on toast. We love ice cream. But seeing them combined in such a raw, unhidden way trips a mental wire that says, this is too much.
The cone forces viewers to draw a personal line. Would you eat it? Would you peel the shell off? Where does indulgence turn into excess?
That internal debate is more compelling than a glowing review ever could.
Dessert or Digital Dare?
Whether this is culinary genius or a carefully engineered internet provocation, it’s working. Ansel has turned a basic cone into a psychological experiment that plays out in the comments.
If you think lobster is just a delivery system for butter, this might be your dream dessert. For everyone else, it’s a fascinating reminder that in 2026, food doesn’t have to be universally loved to go viral.
It just has to make people hesitate before the first bite.
This isn’t the only food moment making the internet uncomfortable, see more viral food trends and social media moments driving the conversation.
