Put the pineapple slices in the 1/2 cup rum and let stand overnight in the refrigerator. You want one ring per ramekin or you can use an iron skillet. (I had to double the recipe to get 13 ramekins of cake)

Preheat oven to 350°

Melt the brown sugar in a saucepan over low heat. Butter your ramekins*. Put a little of the melted sauce in the bottom of your ramekins. Add a pineapple ring to each ramekin. Put a cherry into the center of each ring.

For the cake, beat the sugar and egg yolks in your electric mixer bowl. Add 1/4 cup rum left from your pineapples (or use the pineapple juice you reserved).

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Mix the flour mixture into the sugar mixture until well blended. Fold in the beaten eggs in three batches. Fill your ramekins about 1/2 full with the cake batter. Set the ramekins on a cookie sheet and bake in oven 15-20 minutes (test for doneness, mine took longer).

While cake is baking, make the rum glaze.  Melt the 1 stick butter in a saucepan. Stir in the water and sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for about 5 minutes. Add the 1/2 cup rum slowly and stir. Serve with cake and ice cream.

*Note: You can make this in an iron skillet like my mother use to make it. Melt the butter and sugar in the bottom of the pan, fit in as many pineapple rings as you can get, starting with one in the middle. Put a cherry in the center of each pineapple. Pour on the batter. Bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.Invert over large plate. Serve warm or at room temperature with the glaze and the Macadamia Nut Ice Cream. (I had to make two recipes of cake batter to make 13 ramekins.)

If ready to serve, invert each ramekin onto a plate, drizzle with rum glaze and sprinkle with macadamia nuts. Serve with the macadamia Nut Ice Cream on the side and you can drizzle rum glaze over that also.

Coconut Macadamia Nut Ice Cream

1 c. whole milk

1/2 c. sugar

dash salt

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 can Coco Lopez

2 c. half & half (or heavy cream)

1/2 c. coconut, toasted (garnish)

2 tsp. vanilla bean paste (or vanilla)

1/2 c. toasted macadamia nut pieces

chocolate shavings (I forgot to put mine on finished dessert)

Place 1 cup milk in a small pan and heat over low heat until bubbles form, and milk becomes hot; add the sugar, stirring to dissolve.

Remove from heat and add 1-2 tablespoons of the hot milk to the egg yolks, mixing well; add this slowly so you do not curdle the eggs. Stir in the salt, the heavy cream, and the coco lopez. Stir to blend then strain through a sieve to remove any egg that may have cooked too much. Stir in the vanilla bean paste.

Chill this for 3-4 hours until cold then put into your ice cream maker and freezer according to machine's directions.  After it starts to thicken in about 15-20 minutes I add in the toasted macadamia nuts and continue to freeze. When frozen, transfer to plastic containers and freeze until serving time.  You can garnish this with the toasted coconut and chocolate shavings if you desire.