Make Ahead

Adelaide Perkins' Old Fashioned Spice Cake

by:
May  2, 2014
4
1 Ratings
  • Makes one 8 x 8 cake
Author Notes

This recipe was given to me by a Yankee friend in Cairo, some fifteen years ago. Adelaide was her great-grandmother, born in Ogunquit, Maine. A very old-fashioned recipe, it is, along with Amanda's dump-it cake, one of our family's favorites. The recipe doubles very well and the cake improves for sitting a day. I generally ice with a simple buttercream, but some like to leave plain and others have mentioned a cream cheese icing. —innoabrd

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Ingredients
  • 1 cup rasins
  • 2 cups water
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon cloves, ground
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 egg
Directions
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8" x 8" pan.
  2. In a large saucepan, bring to a boil and then simmer for ten minutes the raisins and water. Add the (cold) butter to the saucepan after you've turned the heat off and let cool while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
  3. Sift the dry ingredients together. I am generally pretty heavy-handed with the spice and probably use closer to a tablespoon of each myself. I know it sounds like a lot of clove, but it works...
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the saucepan once that mixture has cooled, then the beaten egg.
  5. Bake for about 45 minutes, testing towards the end with a skewer.

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