Best gingerbread cookies I've ever made

No, seriously. I am not very experienced baker and all of the gingerbread cookies I've made before turned out really hard. More like gingerbread snaps. So this year I searched for a soft kind of cookie recipe and found a perfect one! I hope my readers from back home who celebrate Christmas on January 7th will find it useful. And I'd like to have a record for myself. The recipe is by Valerie Lugonja so I am basically will just repost it here. You can visit her blog for step by step pictures and instructions. I haven't changed anything except the amount of molasses. The recipe calls for a cup but I used half a cup. I even might use 1/3 cup next time. And I increased the amount of spices.

Ingredients:
1c sugar
1c butter
1/3c molasses (I used blackstrap)
1 c sour milk (sour it with a Tbsp. vinegar)
add 2t soda to sour milk just before adding to batter
add 1t soda into vinegar just before adding to batter
1 egg
1T vinegar (you may need an extra one if you need to sour your own milk)
1/2t nutmeg
1/2t ginger
1/2t cloves
1t cinnamon
1/2t salt
4-5c flour

Instructions:
Cream shortening and sugar
Add molasses and egg, and continue to cream mixture
Add two teaspoons of soda to the sour milk
Add one teaspoon of soda to the tablespoon of vinegar
Add milk, vinegar, spices, and salt to the molasses and egg mixture
Move the batter into a bigger bowl, if necessary and fold in the flour
Refrigerate batter before rolling and cutting into shapes on a lightly floured board
Roll the dough about 5mm thick, it will rise in the oven
Decorate with icing
For the icing:
1 egg white
225g of icing sugar

Instructions:
Whip the egg white until the peaks start to form. Add half of icing sugar, whip up more until smooth. Add the rest of the icing sugar, mix well. Transfer to the large ziplock bag and make a tiny cut at the corner.
The cookies really turned out soft and stayed soft for over 4 days. Definitely will be keeping this recipe.