Spice Cake

My Grandma's easy boiled Spice Cake is my most treasured dessert recipe. As a sweet brunch addition, birthday cake, or party dessert idea, there's no wrong time to savor a slice.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 2

Total Time 2 30

Servings servings

Calories 380kcal

Author Meggan Hill

Ingredients

For the Spice Cake:

2 cups raisins (see note 1)
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups water
¾ cup butter
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
3 cups all-purpose flour (see note 2)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs beaten

For the glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

In medium sauce pan, combine raisins, sugar, water, butter, cinnamon, and cloves. Bring to a boil; remove from heat and cool completely, at least one hour. Pour into a large mixing bowl.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease 12-inch bundt pan (or 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan). In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
Whisk eggs into cooled spice mixture until uniformly combined. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, whisking well after each addition.
Pour batter in to prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely.
To make the glaze, in a small bowl whisk together powdered sugar, water, and vanilla. Drizzle over cooled cake.

Video

Notes

Raisins: I love the chew factor these offer, but if you're not fond of regular raisins, golden raisins, dried cranberries, or chopped dried figs would also work well. Or omit entirely.
All purpose flour: Sift the flour together with the baking powder and baking soda to not only mix those ingredients, but to also ensure you don't end up with any flour pockets hiding inside your cake batter (white flour is obvious in a dark cake like this one).
Yield: This Spice Cake recipe makes one bundt cake, which serves between 12 to 20 depending on the thickness of your slices. This usually serves about 16 nice slices when I'm cutting.
Storage: Cover any extra cake in plastic wrap and store covered at room temperature for up to 4 days.
Freezer: Cool an unglazed Spice Cake to room temperature, then wrap tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight at room temperature, then glaze and slice.
Your pan plan: My Grandma always made this in a 9-inch x 13-inch pan with stellar results, so if you don't own (or don't want to use) a bundt pan, that's certainly a great option.
Spice up your glaze: To echo the spices in the cake batter, feel free to add a pinch of cinnamon to your powdered sugar glaze if you like.

Nutrition