Our Take on the Tornado Cake

    As our readers, you know Peggy and I are foodies.  We love to cook, and actually met in a cooking chat room. Today we see hundreds of photos of what we call "food porn" posts on our Google and FaceBook timelines, and I hasten to add, we are guilty of contributing, as well. 
    Most of the main courses or side dishes leave us unimpressed, 'cause we both enjoy well-seasoned, spicy food. On rare occasions, we'll try a recipe, but then dr. it up with our own Cajun spice blend, etc. "turning it up a notch".  
   Desserts, however, are another thing. I always say, "I'm not a sweet person", meaning I can take or leave desserts, and for the most part I do leave 'em. But then...one day a dazzling, seductive array of photos came slowly gliding down my timeline that made me sit up straight in my chair and drool all over my keyboard. It had me...I was caught; it contained three of my four favorite dessert ingredients:coconut, pecans and pineapple. It urged, "try me, big boy, you won't be sorry." Although I knew instinctively that it was going to contribute to the delinquency of our waistlines, I emailed the slideshow to Peg.
   My loving wife was "all in" on da deal! Before she had a chance to change her mind, I ran to the store and brought back the supplies for our decadent tryst in the kitchen.

 Since Peggy, can't have wheat or gluten, we still managed to make it work. We substituted coconut flour, instead of regular flour and played with the recipe, 'til we were satisfied.  

Here is how we made it.

In a mixing bowl we added 2 cups of coconut flour.

To trick the coconut flour into acting like regular flour we had to add:

1 teaspoon of  xanthan gum, 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a cup of milk.

(If you are going to use regular flour, omit the xanthan gum, milk and baking powder.)   Next came a teaspoon of baking soda.

Add 2 cups of sugar,

2 large eggs,

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract,

and a 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, not drained.

Once we mixed that up good we poured it into a well buttered 9"x13" pan,

leveled it off, then

 stuck the cake into a preheated 350 degree oven for the 45 minutes that the recipe called for...but since we used coconut flour, it took a bit longer, checking with the toothpick test...it took about an hour.

While the cake baked, we made the icing ("frosting" for you Yankees, and Peggy.)

In a sauce pan we started with a 1/2 cup of butter 

To that we added 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla,

2/3 cup of evaporated milk,

and 1 cup of sugar (Domino, grown right in our neighborhood).

We brought these ingredients up to a boil, and when the cake was about ready to come out of the oven, we added 1 cup of chopped pecans and 1 cup of coconut flakes.

When the cake did come out of the oven, we poked holes in it with the handle of a wooden spoon.

Then we poured the frosting over it.

Which will bring us back to this!

This dang cake was truly amazingly delicious and easy, just as promised. And now we are of two minds, decadently satisfied and yet, having guilt pangs for letting it get in our pants...they are now tight(er). We just couldn't keep our hands off it! Oh, it is friendly alright, but definitely not diet friendly. But you know what? You really should try it. Now, if this wasn't decadent enough, I'm already thinking of a way to bring in my 4th favorite ingredient: chocolate! And I have to say, I really don't know why they call it 'tornado cake' 'cuz it hasn't flattened anything on us.

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