Grandmother Bibb's Prune Pound Cake With Walnut Icing

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch bundt pan. Cream the softened butter until it lightens in color. Add the sugar and continue to beat for 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time and mix well. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, soda, salt and spices. Alternately add the flour and buttermilk to the batter in the following manner: 1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk, and then the remaining 1/3 flour. Fold in the vanilla and the prunes. Transfer to the prepared bundt pan and bake in a 300 degree oven for 55 to 60 minutes.

As soon as the cake is in the oven, combine the icing ingredients in a saucepan, except the vanilla, and allow to simmer about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until it becomes darker in color and thicker. Let the icing cool off the heat as the finished cake cools in the bundt pan on a rack (about 15 minutes). Add the vanilla and stir to mix. Turn the cake out onto a rack placed on a sheet of waxed paper and slowly spoon the icing onto the warm cake. Allow the cake to cool completely before slicing.