In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand mixer beat together butter, brown sugar and molasses until smooth – a few minutes.

Add the egg and mix.

With the mixer on low, gradually add in your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix until JUST combined. Do not over mix!

Cover your dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour. I spilt mine in half and made discs and then wrapped it to make it easier to roll out.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Flour a clean surface and roll out your dough to about 1/2″ thick. Sprinkle flour on the dough as needed to keep it from sticking.

Cut out gingerbread men with a cookie cutter and transfer to your baking sheet.

Bake for 7-9 minutes or until set (Mine were perfect at 7 min but play around with what works of your oven!)

Let cool on baking sheet for 2 min before transferring to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

Decorate your gingerbread cookies using royal icing and sprinkles (the decorative icing from the grocery store works great if you don’t want to make it!)

ENJOY!!