This was one of the best occasions to make a cake - it was my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. This could have been the perfect reason to buy one of those beautifully decorated cakes from a bakery but I wanted to make a cake that she loves to eat. My mom-in-law simply loves nuts of all kinds and of all the cakes, she really likes this carrot cake.

I decided to take it up a notch in nuttiness - I made the cake with more nuts than the recipe called for. I usually store nuts in the freezer to avoid them from getting spoilt. This time around, I took pecan halves and toasted them in a slow oven till they became warm and I could smell the pecans toasting. I then chopped them into smaller pieces and used them in the cake recipe. I used 1 1/2 cups of pecans instead of the 1 cup called for in the recipe.

I also made a cream cheese whipped topping from this recipe at Allrecipes website. I have to admit, inspite of the reviewers suggestions, my icing was not as stiff as I would have liked it to be. But it was a very tasty frosting and the almond essence in the frosting complimented the nuts in the cake even more. As a finishing touch, I divided the frosting into 2 parts and added blanched chopped almonds to one half. I used this icing with the almonds to layer the cake and I used the plain frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake.

With the cake and frosting all figured out, the only thing left was decorating the cake. I have to admit, my skills at piping designs are still far from good. Recently I have been reading up a bit on fondant and how it is used to make beautiful designs on cakes.It seemed hard to mess up so I decided to use fondant to decorate this cake. Fondant is like gorgeous edible playdough! I used it to make roses and petals which were used to cover the cake. I made a pink ribbon to go around the cake as the edges of my cake were not as neat as I would have liked them to be.

The final touches were frosting on the edge of the cake and the writing on the cake "Happy Birthday Daadi". Daadi stands for paternal grandmother and this cake was a loving gift to her from her grandchildren. That is the most important identity for her right now - she loves her grandchildren immensely and over a period of time, the kids have taken over the candle blowing and cake cutting on her cakes. But she loves it and would not have it any other way! The spellings of Daadi underwent a lot of debate but it was done and I could not erase and rewrite so we had to make do with what it is - next birthday, correct spellings!

The recipe for the carrot pineapple cake can be found here . Bake the cake in two 9 inch round cake pans layered with parchment. After the cakes come out of the oven cool them in the pan for 10 minutes and take out on a cooling rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

2 cups icing sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

1. In a small bowl beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form; set aside.

2. In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sugar and almond extract. Beat until smooth, then fold in whipped cream.

For the cake assembly :

1. Level the tops of each of the layer cakes and cut each round horizontally into 2 equal halves.

2. Take half of the cream cheese frosting and add 1 cup chopped blanched almonds to it. Use this frosting to layer the cakes. Once all the cakes have been layered, cover the cake with plain frosting on top and the sides.

3. Roll out some white fondant into a 1/8 inch thick layer. You can use icing sugar to prevent the fondant from sticking. Cover the cake with the white fondant and trim the edges to make it neat. Color the remaining fondant red, pink and green and use it to make the roses. Decorate the cake as desired.