This cupcake-A-sculpture atop a scaffold exhibits a very swarthy-looking Hester replete with swarthy-looking baby Pearl. I think the immensity of the letter itself (both on Hester's outfit and engulfing the scaffold) is surely meant to symbolize the immensity of Hester's sin and her vast loneliness in bearing it.
It is rare that a cookie sheet so aptly portrays the symbolic representations of Hawthorne's novel. The A-besmirched tombstone parallels death with Hester's shame - AND gives a snarky wink to Dimmesdale's "buried" guilt. The scene depicted on cookie's right hemisphere shows the symbolic rose spurting hope and regeneration outside the ghastly Puritan prison door.
The white tapestery of icing is besmirched by the symbolic M&M candies - scarlet M&M candies! The brief pleasure of sin (signified by the rich milk chocolate in a crunchy-candy coating) leaves its eternal mark on the soul. (Also, if you look closely, the M&M candies form the letter A on each cookie! Brilliant, yet subtle!)
