Keep calm and eat cake

Last summer I bought a book at UO called Booze Cakes. Oh yes, it's just as amazing as it sounds. I've slowly been trying out recipes on special occasions. Last week I made the pineapple upside down cakes and they were delicious!! So now, I'm sharing the recipe with you:


Pineapple Lemon Cupcakes
3⁄4 cup (1-1⁄2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1⁄4 cup dark rum
3⁄4 cup pineapple juice
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons rum
3 tablespoons blue Curacao
5 drops blue food coloring

Rum Pineapple Topping
3⁄4 cup (1-1⁄2 sticks) unsalted butter
1-2⁄3 cups light brown sugar
1 tablespoon dark rum
12 pineapple slices

Additional Topping:
Whipped cream (make it spiked by folding in two tablespoons of rum)
coconut shavings
12 maraschino cherries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two cupcake pans.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla and rum. Mix in pineapple juice. Add flour, baking powder and salt. Transfer one-third of the batter into a separate bowl and stir in blue Curacao, and food coloring.
3. For the topping: In a saucepan over medium heat, stir butter and brown sugar 3 minutes, or until melted. Remove from heat and stir in rum. Reserve one-third of the mixture; spoon the rest into pans. Put a cherry into the center of each cup and arrange pineapple wedges around each cherry. (or if you like the cherry cold like me you can add it after it has been cooked)
4. Spoon the yellow batter into pans, and then the blue batter. Bake 25 to 30 minutes.
5. Let cakes cool a few minutes, and then loosen with a knife. Press a serving tray to the pan; flip over to unmold cakes. Add the whipped cream and coconut and cherry on top.

Type of Cake: Individual Cakes
Serves: 10–12
Booze Meter: Feeling It