Mill soft wheat berries into 660 grams of freshly milled flour.

Add baking soda, salt, ground ginger, and ground cloves to flour. Mix with a spoon and set aside.

Cream together softened unsalted butter, sugar, egg, molasses and vinegar.

Add dry ingredients and mix until all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated and dough forms.

Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours up to overnight. It’s important for the dough to be cold throughout before rolling.

Once the dough is cold, remove from the refrigerator and divide into 8 pieces. Work with one piece at a time and return the remainder of the dough to the refrigerator to keep cold.

Roll out 1/8 of the cold dough evenly to 1/8–1/4 inch thick. To prevent gritty or tough cookies, avoid adding extra flour. If the dough sticks, roll it between parchment paper or directly onto a non-stick oven safe silicone mat—this also makes transferring to the baking sheet easy and helps maintain the cookie’s shape.

Once rolled, use a cookie cutter to cut out the cookie shape of your choice.

Remove any excess dough around the cookie shape. Form extra dough into a ball and continue rolling and cutting out cookie shapes.

Bake at 375 ° for 6-8 minutes. Thicker cookies may take longer to bake.

Repeat rolling, cutting, and baking until you get through all the dough, keeping the dough you aren’t actively working with cold in the refrigerator.

Make the icing by mixing powdered sugar, cream of tartar, and milk. Mix until smooth icing forms.

Once cookies have cooled ice and decorate cookies as desired.