In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
In a separate bowl, cream together the sugar and butter with electric mixer until creamy.
Add milk and vanilla and mix to combine.
Add the egg.
Finally, add the dry ingredients to the wet.
Put the dough in the refrigerator to chill for 1-2 hours.
After chilling, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Roll out chilled dough (I used about ⅓ of the dough at a time) onto floured surface, unless you are planning to just roll into balls. In that case, just roll into approximately 1-2 tablespoon sized dough balls and place on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.
If rolling the dough out for cookie cutter cookies, make sure to flour the rolling pin too and cut out with cookie cutters. I rolled the dough until it was about ⅛-1/4? thick, which results in a softer cookie.
Place the cut out/dough ball cookies ½? apart onto non-stick baking sheet and bake 10-12 minutes, until the edges are very light brown.
You do not want the top of the cookies to be brown. Cool the cookies completely on wire rack before frosting them.