In the Nyan Cat animation, what pastry forms the cat's torso?

In the Nyan Cat animation, a Pop-Tart forms the cat’s torso. The pixel-art character shows a gray cat attached to a pink-frosted pastry, flying through space and leaving a bright rainbow trail.

Artist Christopher Torres created the original animated GIF in April 2011. He said that, during a livestream drawing session, people separately suggested that he draw a cat and a Pop-Tart, so he combined the two ideas into one deliberately absurd character. The first version was called “Pop Tart Cat.”

YouTube user Sara June, known as saraj00n, paired the animation with a loop of the Japanese song “Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!” and uploaded the result on April 5, 2011. That version popularized the name Nyan Cat and helped turn the GIF into an international internet phenomenon.

The pastry is sometimes described as a cherry Pop-Tart because of its pink icing, but “Pop-Tart” is the canonical quiz answer. It is not a croissant, doughnut, or waffle. Torres based the cat’s appearance partly on his pet cat Marty.