Beach Boy Cookies With Birthday Cake M&M's

My neighbor Jenny bought a Perfect Man cookie cutter this past December, and created hilarious gingerbread cookies for the holidays (see final photo in this post). They were a heck of a lot more fun than my spritz cookies.

Four months later, Jenny’s Perfect Man popped into my brain when I saw Birthday Cake M&M’s appearing on store shelves. I thought, “Time to create Beach Boy cookies with M&M’s swim trunks, and call them ‘Birthday’ suits!”

Unfortunately, my plan was foiled. Birthday Cake M&M’s are slightly larger than traditional M&M’s, making the swim trunks idea mission impossible. Mini M&M’s would have provided better overall coverage, but I wanted to use Birthday Cake M&M’s. Grrrr.

Plan B: Jenny came up with the idea of creating barbells out of the Birthday Cake M&M’s and placing a barbell into the hands of each sugary Beach Boy. Perfect!

So, off to work I went.

1. I used Sweetopia’s Brown Sugar Cut-Out Cookie Recipe, and cut the recipe in half, which yielded 16 cookies. This recipe was perfect for getting a sun-kissed skin tone. Wink.

2. Jenny made me a batch of Bake at 350’s Royal Icing, and divided and tinted it with AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste Electric Blue and Mint Green. Thank you Jenny!

3. I created each six-pack using a #2 tip.

4. Royal Icing was thinned to syrup consistency, just as Bake at 350 prescribes, and Birthday Suits were filled in. Whew!

5. To create each dumbbell, I placed a generous dot of Royal Icing on each M&M and placed a pretzel stick on top to connect the two candies. I used 20 pretzel sticks and 40 M&M’s. Some of the boys wanted to lift a barbell in each hand. Overachievers!

6. I let the barbells dry overnight.

7. In the morning, I was ready to turn Beach Boys into Body Builders! I placed a few generous dots of Royal Icing on each Beach Boy’s arm, and placed a barbell on top. To hold each barbell steady while drying, I used small weighted objects … like aspirin bottles. Worked like a charm.