There are plenty of boozy ball recipes flittering about in the world, but mine started out as a Rum Ball recipe from a family friend, Aunt Barb, who got it from her boss's wife. Making rum balls was Barb's holiday tradition; she made A LOT of them, so she made sure she enlisted plenty of help. The first year she recruited me, I was warned to show up early and with a full stomach. I learned why very quickly. By the time I arrived, a few batches were already on the counter, the bottle was more than halfway empty, and everyone was in a very, very good mood. I don't remember a whole lot about the rest of day, (I recall there was a noticeable difference between the early made rum balls with a later-in-the-day ones), but I do remember laughing and having a lot of fun, and that's truly what's most important about holiday baking.
I don't know about you, but I always start my baking with a firm plan (I'm only making THIS, and THAT'S IT!). But inevitably I'll get halfway through baking and suddenly think, "Wait, I don't have enough goodies to fill a plate...I need something else!" So now I have to make an additional trip to the grocery store, which means driving in traffic, finding a place to park, and standing in line; all of which takes up valuable baking time and leads to increased stress that I just don't need.
This recipe helps cut down on the chaos. It's very easy and very versatile, which makes it really awesome because you can use up a lot of what you already have lying about from other recipes or from what you already have in your pantry. Even if you don't have a box of vanilla wafers lying about, if you pulsate sandwich cookies (scrape the cream filling out first), chocolate chip cookies or even graham crackers it will still work...and then poof! Now you have a whole new recipe to share with the group. In fact, let me know about your different combinations. I'd really be interested to hear what you try and what worked for you! Just be sure that cookie/nut/syrup/liquid mixture bonds enough to stay in a ball and you're good to go.
A couple of notes:
- Be sure you sift the sugar and cocoa!!!
- If you don't have a food processor, use the bag smash method and beat the wafers and nuts finely (sorry to any men reading that particular sentence).
- If you don't have pecans, you can use walnuts and vice versa.
- If you don't have dark rum, try vanilla rum, or coconut rum, or whatever rum you have on hand. You can try vodka, but I recommend upping the corn syrup to 1 tsp since vodka is a grain based booze and doesn't have the natural sugars in it like rum does and you may need the added bonding component.
- You can use absolutely no nuts - just add additional vanilla wafers or even coconut bits (pulsated finely)
- For the powdered sugar dusting, you can either use just powdered sugar, or mix equal parts powdered sugar and cocoa powder. You can also toss in a few more finely pulsated pecans, walnuts or coconut pieces. You can even try sprinkles if you want a truly festive look!
Big Bad Boozy Balls With Rum (*base recipe)
Ingredients:1 cup - powdered sugar (sifted), plus extra for dusting
1/2 cup - finely chopped vanilla wafers
2 tbsp - cocoa powder (sifted), plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp - light corn syrup
1 cup - finely chopped pecans
2 tbsp - Rum (dark rum, spiced rum, vanilla or a combination of all 3)
1 tbsp - water (if needed)
Directions:
Mix everything together in a bowl.
Using your hands, roll chunks of "dough" into balls about the diameter of a quarter. The mixture will be sticky, but should pull away from your hand to form a ball. If it's too mushy, stir in more more wafer bits.
Roll lightly through powdered sugar (shaking off extra). Let sit.
Store in an airtight container.
Big Bad Boozy Balls with Irish Cream (you're still relatively sober enough when you can say it 5 times quickly)
Ingredients:
1 cup - powdered sugar (sifted), plus extra for dusting
1/2 cup - finely chopped vanilla wafers
2 tbsp - cocoa powder (sifted), plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp - light corn syrup
1 cup - finely chopped walnuts
4 tbsp - Irish Cream liqueur
Directions:
Mix everything together in a bowl.
Using your hands, roll chunks of "dough" into balls about the diameter of a quarter
Roll lightly through powdered sugar (shaking off extra). Let sit.
Store in an airtight container.
Adapted from Aunt Barb's recipe, originally from Harriet Cirzan.
As always, take care imbibing any food or drink made with alcohol - get a ride, don't drink and drive. Remember...someone is counting on you to be around next year to make these again!! :)
