Place the flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and baking soda in a medium-sized bowl and stir to mix.
Place the butter and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl and, using an electric mixer, beat them on high speed until very light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the egg, continuing to beat on high speed until the mixture is very light and somewhat shiny, about 2 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to medium, then blend in the molasses. Add the flour mixture in 3 batches, blending after each addition until well incorporated and scraping down the side of the bowl as needed. Cover the dough and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 days.
Position two oven racks so that they divide the oven into thirds, and preheat the oven to 350 F.
Place the granulated sugar in a shallow bowl. Pinch off little hunks of dough and use your hands to roll them into fat 1 1/2-inch balls. Then, roll each ball in the sugar. Arrange the balls about 3 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and press them with the palm of your hand to flatten them slightly. You’ll probably fit 12 cookies on each baking sheet, so it will take at least three baking sheets to bake all the cookies. You’ll want to bake two sheets at a time, placing one on the top rack and one on the bottom. Refrigerate the remaining dough until you are ready to bake it.
Bake the gingersnaps until they are browned and cracked a bit on the top, 10 to 12 minutes. Peek partway through the baking time and rotate the baking sheets if the cookies seem to be cooking unevenly. Transfer the cookies to wire racks and let cool.
Notes
Know that the batter is supposed to be quite thick and stiff, which helps you roll it into balls.
Make sure the butter is fully at room temp, not cool at all, or it will be hard to blend with the sugar and other ingredients.
Make sure your brown sugar is soft. Brown sugar can become hard or crumbly if air gets into the container once the brown sugar is open. It needs to be kept fully sealed. To re-soften hard or crumbly brown sugar, put a piece of plain bread or a roll in the container with the brown sugar, seal it, and in about 24 hours your brown sugar should be soft again.
The cookies are also supposed to be pretty flat, though in the perfect world the middle is a bit tender and the rest of the cookie is pretty chewy – crisp if you want to leave it in for another minute or two.