Crush caroms seeds in palms or in fingers and take it in a big bowl along with flour, salt and mix well.
Add butter, shortening and mix well with fingertips until butter blends into the flour. If using oil instead of shortening, add it at this point and mix until it is blended into the flour.
Add water and bring the flour together. Transfer the dough to a working surface; countertop or a cutting/working board and knead well for a minute to make the dough soft. Do not over knead.
Pre-heat the oven to 375 F. Line the baking sheets with aluminum foil, for easy cleaning.
Divide the dough to 4 equal parts. Take one part onto the working surface, dust some flour and roll it out into a 9 – 10” circle. While rolling out one part of the dough, keep the others covered with a saran wrap or a plate, until ready to use.
Using a fork or a skewer, prick the rolled dough to avoid puffing when baking.
Using a cookie cutter or a biscuit cutter, cut out the big circle into small crackers. I used a small steel cup, 2 – 2 ½” in diameter. Keep aside the scrapes.
Transfer crackers to a baking tray. Repeat the above two steps with the rest of the dough parts. Lastly, gather all the scraps, roll it out and cut into crackers.
Bake crackers on a middle rack for 10 minutes or until light spots form on the bottom of the cracker. Turn around and bake for another 5 minutes until light brown. I baked in two batches. While the first batch was baking, I rolled out rest of the dough.
Transfer the baked crackers to a cooling rack and cool them. Once cooled, transfer to an airtight container.