Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Grease and lightly flour a 8-inch by 3-inch cake pan.

Into a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, ginger, cloves, and allspice. Using a pastry blender, two knives or your fingers, work the butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the eggs, vanilla, milk and half of the crystallized ginger and stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will appear lumpy).

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle remaining crystallized ginger on top of batter. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, until a cake tester inserted into cake’s center comes out clean.