Our friend Cindy Johns, who is 11, is going to be a student ambassador with People to People this summer, and she’s going to Paris and London. She’s selling giant decorated cookies to help pay for her trip — here’s one of her recipes.
2-1/2 C sugar
1 C (2 sticks) butter or margarine
1 C shortening
4 eggs
1/2 C light corn syrup
2 T vanilla
6 C flour
1-1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
Icing to decorate
Cream the sugar, butter, and shortening together in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until well-blended. Add the eggs, corn syrup, and vanilla and beat until fluffy.
In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Gradually add this mixture to the other bowl and mix until well-blended.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour, preferably overnight.
You can bake these as small sugar cookies or as giant decorated cookies. The dough will be sticky and hard to handle unless you keep it very cold, keeping half of each batch in the freezer while you work with the other half. They will also spread, so leave at least 3 inches between the cookies.
Bake them at 375 F. Small cookies will take 7 to 9 minutes, and large ones may take as long as 10 to 15 minutes. Watch them carefully and remove when they are barely browned. Cool them on foil.