Rum Balls Recipe

• 20 mnts to make
• Serves 48 rum balls

Rum balls are the perfect adult indulgence. As their name implies, these cookies contain rum and because they are not baked the alcohol flavor and kick are not lost during baking. Sylvia Lovegren tells us in her book 'Fashionable Food' that baked goods laced with alcohol were all the rage in the 1960s, especially Rum and Bourbon Balls. Read more Essentially these two recipes are the same; the only difference being the alcohol. This cookie is especially popular during the holiday season. There are a few ways to maximize the flavor of these little gems. First, I recommend toasting the pecans to bring out their wonderful flavor. Then you can either chop them up finely with a knife or you can process them in your food processor. Just make sure you do not process the nuts to a paste. Don't feel you have to use pecans, for walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds also make excellent rum balls. While many recipes call for finely crushed vanilla wafers, I have recently taken to using crushed shortbread cookies. Other ideas are to use graham cracker crumbs, crushed meringues, ginger cookies, chocolate wafers, or even leftover cake can be substituted for the vanilla wafers. When it comes to the other ingredients in this recipe, cocoa powder means either natural or Dutch-processed. Rum means dark, white, or light. In fact, although these are called rum balls you could make bourbon balls simply by replacing the rum with bourbon. You will probably notice that after mixing the ingredients the batter can be quite sticky. To prevent your hands from becoming a mess, chill the batter for about 30 minutes and lightly butter the palms of my hands before forming into balls. While I like to roll the cookies in powdered sugar, you could also roll them in granulated white sugar, cocoa powder or even chopped nuts. These really taste better if left for at least a few days so the flavors have time to mingle and soften. Make sure to store the rum balls in a covered container in the refrigerator but bring them to room temperature before serving. See less

• chocholate
• freeze-chill
• nothing specific