For the past 20 or so years, I’ve made rum balls for friends, colleagues, and family. They’ve been hand-delivered, sent through the mail, or brought to the office. And they are always a big hit. In early November, I start getting pinged by friends and co-workers asking when they are coming.
The tradition started nearly two decades ago with two of my oldest friends. One had been making a bourbon/rum ball for her family for years. When the three of us started an annual baking tradition she introduced these amazing little “truffles” to us. When we first started we did all the crushing and chopping by hand and over the years I’ve modified my techniques to include the use of a stand mixer and a food processor.
My recipe comes from Joy of Baking and consists of toasted pecans, vanilla wafer cookies, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, corn syrup, Myers dark rum. I take the simplest path when it comes to preparation, but on the original page, they have a bunch of suggestions for different types of nuts and accoutrement to roll the completed candies in.
I do have some tips before you embark on this journey…
- A food processor and a stand-mixer with a regular paddle attachment will make these very simple to make. If you don’t have these, you can do the chopping of nuts and crushing of cookies by hand and mix everything with a regular hand mixer.
- Mix the rum and corn syrup together before adding to the dry ingredients. It will take a bit of stirring (2-3 minutes) but the ease of pouring a single thin liquid will be worth it. Otherwise, the corn syrup is just a sticky mess.
- I once decided to leave the dough in the refrigerator overnight. This was a bad idea. It formed a single mass that did nothing to loosen up on its own. My husband suggested putting everything back in the stand-mixer and adding some water. But why add water when you can add MORE RUM! I broke it all up a bit in the bowl before reattaching the paddle to the stand-mixer and gently poured in little dashes of rum at a time. Worked like a charm.
Finally, four dozen of these will not be enough. I usually make 4 batches at a time by quadrupling the ingredients. Due to their popularity, even 200 is sometimes not enough. I usually flip on a movie, turn the tv toward the kitchen and get to work rolling. I always let the hubby have the first one.
Enjoy!
Rum Balls
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups toasted pecans or walnuts (150g)
- 1 1/4 cups finely crushed vanilla wafer cookies (125g)
- 1 cup confectioners sugar (60g)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder (15g) unsweetend or Dutch processed
- 2 tbsp light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup rum or any other liquor you prefer
- 1/2 cup granulated white sugar for finishing
Instructions
- To toast nuts: Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Place the pecans on a baking sheet and toast for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned and fragrant. Let the nuts cool completely then finely chop with a kinfe or use a food processor to pulse until finely chopped. Transfer the nuts to a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer.
- Process the vanilla wafer cookies in the food processor until finely ground. Add the crumbs to the nuts. To this mixture, add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder and stir well until combined.
- In a measuring cup mix the corn syrup and rum until they come together into a single liquid form.
- Lock the stand-mixer and set it to the lowest speed. Pour in the rum/syrup mixture into the dry ingredients until combined. Measure the granulated sugar into a shallow bowl and set aside.
- Shape into 1-inch balls and roll them in the granulated sugar.Tip: You can refrigerate the dough for up to 30 minutes if the dough is too sticky. If your dough is too dry you can add a bit more rum, a ¼ tsp at a time, until it reaches the correct consistency.
- Store the finished rum balls in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They are best if made several days in advance of serving to allow the flavors to mingle. Serve them at room temperature.
You seriously can’t have just one of these rum balls. I’ve made a dozen last a few days and that was really tough.