It’s almost the Marine Corps’ birthday, and that means birthday balls, special birthday messages… and, of course, baked goods. There’s always an epic cake at the birthday ball, of course, but I like to make something festive as well. In the past, I’ve made camouflage cookies and camo cupcakes, as well as “scarlet and gold” cookies. But I’m pretty excited about these Marine dress blues cookies.

It’s a well-known fact that Marines have the best dress uniforms — and everyone looks good in dress blues. I prefer the traditional dress blues to the uniform higher-ranking officers wear (I refer to it as the matador outfit), in part because it’s so iconic. For the cookies, I decided to do the uniform of an enlisted Marine who has earned the red “blood stripe” on his trousers. (In case you’re wondering what the difference is between officer and enlisted uniform, officers don’t have the red outline seams, and their belt is black.)

I couldn’t decide if I wanted them to be wearing covers (normal people would call these “hats”) or not, so I did half and half. Feel free to choose one style and stick with it if you prefer!

I apologize for the weird light in the process photos. I made these at night in our house in Bahrain, and the light was so bad I couldn’t totally fix it with editing. But I think you can figure out what you’re supposed to do.

I used my go-to sugar cookie recipe for these, and the royal icing recipe from the package of meringue powder I was using. Normally I prefer using powdered egg whites, but I could never find any in Bahrain. The cookies tasted great but did spread a bit. It may have just been because of the weather at the time, but if you’re worried, you can put the cookie sheets with unbaked cookie dough in the fridge or freezer for 10 or so minutes before popping them directly into the oven.

Aren’t they adorable? They also don’t require a lot of drawing skills — you’ll just have to draw some lines and dots. You also don’t need a special cookie cutter — I used a normal gingerbread man cookie cutter and I think they turned out perfect!

How to decorate Marine dress blues cookies

You’ll need:
* Sugar cookies, chocolate cut-out cookies or gingerbread cookies cut into gingerbread man shapes, baked and cooled
* Royal icing (Never decorated cookies with royal icing before? You may want to read this from Bake at 350… I have started doing my flood icing so that it goes back on itself in 8-10 seconds instead of 2-3, though)
* Black, white, blue, red and yellow food coloring gel (I prefer Americolor brand)
* Decorating bags, couplers and tips (I use a Wilton #3 tip)

Start by laying out all of your cooled cookies and making all of the icing. You will need stiff/piping consistency icing in black, white, blue, red and yellow*, as well as flood icing in black and blue. I put all of the colored piping consistency icings in piping bags and then put plastic wrap on the bowls of remaining black and blue icing, making sure the plastic wrap is touching the surface of the icing. You could also go ahead and thin it to flood consistency and put it in squeeze bottles, if you’d like. (*If you’d rather wait and deal with the white, red and yellow coloring later, that’s fine, just make sure to cover the untinted royal icing with plastic wrap touching the surface, so it doesn’t dry out)

To decorate, first pipe the outline of the jacket on the cookies in black. Remember the uniform jacket has a high neck, so it should come up onto the cookie’s head a bit, and it hits below the hip, so it should come down below the cookie’s waist. You will also want to pipe a straight line for the brim of the hat, if you’re doing hats. Next, pipe the outline of the trousers in blue, and pipe two eyes on the cookies if you’re not making hats. Then pipe the outline of the shoes in black (you can do this when you’re piping the other black items, but I feel like it’s better/easier to do it after the trousers).

You may need to pause to allow the outlines to dry a bit — you can use this time to thin the remaining black and blue icing to flood consistency. You won’t need any more of the black or blue piping consistency icing, so you can empty that into the bowls to become flood icing, too, if you’d like.

Use the black flood icing to fill in the jackets and shoes, and use the blue flood icing to fill in the trousers. Allow the cookies to dry for at least an hour before proceeding. (You can use this time to make the red, yellow and white icing, if you haven’t already done so, or you could even let them dry for a few hours and come back to finish later)

Once the jackets and trousers are at least close to dry, pipe the red icing onto the jacket. You’ll need to pipe a line at the top of the jacket, another parallel line a bit below that one to show the bottom of the jacket’s collar, two small lines on the shoulders of the jacket, one along the bottom of the jacket, and one perpindicular line running from the bottom collar line to the bottom of the jacket (this one should be slightly off center). Then, pipe red lines near the outside edges of the trousers, leaving just a bit of blue visible. (I know this may sound a little confusing, but you can refer to the photos for reference).

Next, use the yellow icing to pipe two buttons on the collar, two near the tops of the shoulders, and a line of buttons down the center of the jacket.

Use the white icing to pipe belts on the cookies, as well as hats (if doing hats), and little fingers/gloves. I only did four fingers on most of them, because my cookies were pretty small, but you can do five if you have room!

Allow the white icing to set for 20-30 minutes, then finish the cookies by using the yellow icing to pipe square belt buckles and yellow dots at the center of each of the hats (if making).

Let the cookies set for at least a few hours, if not overnight.

(Please note: This post contains some affiliate links)