In a seperate large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and cloves.

With the mixer at low speed, slowly mix in the dry ingredients to the wet until thoroughly combined. Dough will be thick and sticky. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and place each onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Wrap each up tightly and pat down on it to create a disc shape. Chill discs of dough for at least 3 hours and up to 3 days.

Remove 1 of the dough discs from the fridge, remove from the plastic wrap and place on a flat work surface that's been generously dusted with flour. You should also flour a rolling pin and your hands and continue to flour the work surface as needed (any flour spots on the cut shapes will bake off). Roll out the dough until 1/4" thick, then grab some cookie cutters.

Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes in the dough. Once you can no longer get any more shapes, re-roll the scraps to use up all the dough. You may need to refrigerate the dough again in between re-rolling, if it gets too warm and sticky.

Place the shaped cookies on the prepared baking tray. Leave an inch or so of space between shapes, as they will expand slightly. Bake cookies for 8-11 minutes (depending on the size of your cookie cutters. Smaller shapes will cook faster). Rotate the pan once during the bake time. They should be soft in the centers with slightly crisp edges.

Cool cookies on the baking tray for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing : Whisk together all of the icing ingredients until they are a good consistency (it should be thick, but you don't want it too thick, or it won't be easy to decorate with). You can separate the frosting into a few different bowls and add food coloring if you'd like. An easy way to decorate is to then place the icing into small squeeze bottles (can be bought for less than $1 each at Walmart).

Make sure the cookies are cooled completely before decorating! Icing will set and harden within a few hours of decorating. No need to cover the cookies while the frosting is setting.

Store finished, decorated cookies covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.

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