Carrot Cake drama

So here is the carrot cake winner.  I still don't love it.  Boo.  I need to admit, you see, that I've already tasted my dream carrot cake, in a coffee shop down the road (gasp!), and this carrot cake is nothing like it.  They are opposites in fact, this one loaded with all the additives imaginable and the other plain, nothing but carrot cake bliss.  The reason I haven't made it?  I'm to scared to ask for the recipe.  It's all my own fault.  This carrot cake, is good in it's own right, but I'm not going to give a recipe because it's not perfect.

This cake is from my Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook.  I changed it a lot, cutting down on the sugar.  It's got a fancy cinnamon brown sugar icing, which amps up the flavour.  But I've got to admit, the cake is still to wet and I think it has to much stuff in it.  Next time I will try cutting out the coconut (I don't taste it anyway) and take out the pineapple, so the batter is drier.  A key aspect that hasn't been resolved is the choice of spices that make up the ideal flavour combination.  I've used everything from ginger to allspice and nothing has been perfect.  Cinnamon is the only given in carrot cake.  We've got a lot of work to do yet, but I'm getting sick of carrot cake.