happy birthday to the most wonderful man i know

Today is a very special day, it is my daddy's birthday, since my father is the driving force behind my love of food and this blog I knew we had to concoct the perfect birthday cake for him because he sure does deserve it! My father loves almost everything, after conversing with my mother we chose carrot cake, as it is his favorite. It wasn't just going to be any carrot cake, it was going to have the works, loaded with raisins, coconut and pineapple. After sifting through our various recipes we decided on Ina Garten's Carrot and Pineapple Cake. We adjusted it slightly (used canned pineapple and substituted walnuts for coconut). We got to spend the afternoon yesterday with my parents, they trekked in the blizzard to come to watch the basketball team squeak by Rutgers in overtime. We planned on meeting them for lunch and then off to the game but the weather was atrocious and you could barely see in front of your face so we ordered up some pizza and wings, which arrived an hour and a half later, but that's besides the point. After we scarfed that down quick we presented daddy with his cake.

 happy birthday daddy, I love you so very much and am so glad I got to spend the day with you yesterday since I couldn't be with you today. You are the best daddy any one could ask for, thank you for all that you do for me to make my life as wonderful as it is. I hope you have a wonderful day of R and R and I miss you already, can't wait to see you in a few short weeks, even if it's only for a day before me and momma leave!

here's some pictures of the process..

 so many ingredients. we also learned the hard way, buy shredded carrots. Half the time was spent shredding carrots..and we had to get creative on just how to shred them.

 we decided we would make more frosting next time, and add more to the middle layer, it is a lot of dense cake, it needed some more frosting.

 our frosting was a little lumpy..but it still tasted yummy!

 yum!