The trouble with setting it all up, writing code and seeing if the whole thing works is, if it doesn't work you dont' know which part. Software or hardware.
I would start by verifying that the micro is generating the required signals, preferably when a button is hit or something. A scope or logic analyzer is required.
A very cheap way of debugging - just to see if *any* signals are sent is to use a bicolour LED, or back-to-back LED's hooked to the IO, with two 1K resistors. This way you can see when the pin is high, low, or a pulse train (like SCLK). It is far from ideal as it won't give any timing information, and you would need to continuously send signals to the DAC to see any changes.
That will at least give you a yes/no on the software side, but wont' tell you whats wrong if you see nothing.
Also, post your init and main routines.
edit: typos