Instructions: In a large mixing bowl, sift together 1 cup flour, spices, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the molasses and brown sugar; beat until well-combined. Add the vegetable shortening and butter. On low speed, add the dry ingredients, a little at a time, to form a stiff dough.

Divide the dough in half. Place each half of dough on a piece of plastic wrap. Shape into a rectangle, and chill in the refrigerator overnight. Begin with one half of the dough, and divide the rectangle into quarters. Working on a lightly floured baking mat, roll out one of the quarters as thin as possible, until its almost translucent, to completely cover the baking mat. Trim the edges, forming the dough into a perfect rectangle. Keep the remaining quarters refrigerated.

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Place the rolled-out dough and the baking mat on a pan. Bake 10 minutes, rotate the pan, and continue baking for 4 more minutes. Remove the sheet from the oven, and, using a cookie cutter, quickly stamp out as many as you can before the dough cools.

Transfer the stamped-out cookies to a wire rack to cool. If dough becomes too hard to stamp, reheat it in the oven for 45 to 60 seconds, and continue stamping out the cookies. Repeat the process until all cookies have been stamped out of the dough.

Makes about 375 very thin cookies.

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