Clove Cake--Mccall Cook Book Version - cooking recipe

Ingredients

3 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins (plumped beforehand in a small amount of water, drained)
1 cup butter, soft (no substitutes)
2 1/2 cups sugar
5 eggs, beaten until light and lemon-coloured
1 cup buttermilk (room temperature)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10-12 cup Bundt pan (I use Wilton's Cake Release and cakes slide out of their tin with ease!).
Sift 2 3/4 cups cake flour with the cloves, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium-sized bowl. Set aside. Toss remaining 1/4 cup of flour with the raisins. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat at medium speed the butter until light creamy. Gradually add the sugar, 1/2 a cup at a time, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
Blend the beaten eggs into the sugar mixture at medium speed, scraping the sides down using a rubber spatula.
At low speed, alternately blend into the sugar-egg mixture the dry ingredients (in thirds) and the the buttermilk (in halves), beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat ONLY until blended; stir in the floured raisins by hand.
Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan; bake at 60-65 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool cake in pan, on wire rack, for 10 minutes. Gently loosen, with a dull knife, the edges of the cake; turn out cake onto a rack. Cool completely, about an hour. This is a large, moist cake that keeps very well.
Serve plain, with a dusting of powdered sugar, an orange-flavoured glaze or orange-flavoured cream cheese frosting.