Christmas is incomplete without a good dose of rum.
The Christmas fruit cake is the centrepiece of the festive celebration. However, the rum ball, lurking in the shadows, awaits its time. They are a Christmas tradition in many countries. What they lack in splendour, they make up for in flavour and have become a staple.
RUM BALLS
Rum balls look like truffles made from leftover biscuits or cakes, but with chocolate. Are they rum-infused? You might be wondering if these cookies contain rum if you have never tried them. What is the best way to find out if they contain rum?
It was because I did it for the longest time. Haha!
Candy is a place you may remember from your childhood. It was a small café located outside of my school that introduced you to doughnuts, pastry, and almost every Western dessert. It’s also where I had my first ever rum ball. At the time, I was unsure if the rum was just a name and if it contained any.
It was not until many years later that I discovered that rum is a key ingredient in rum balls. Without it, it would be impossible to recreate the original.
What other things are in a Rum Ball?
This is a very simple list of ingredients.
Cake – There’s a recipe for rum balls without any cake. Instead, you can use vanilla wafers and digestives. It was a challenge to make it this way. My recipe is mostly made of cake. To make rum balls, do you have to bake a special cake? No! Any leftover cake can be used, although fruit or chocolate cakes are best. However, you could also substitute another cake for the one you prefer. If you can make Christmas plum cake, it’s worth it. They have a unique flavour that is hard to replicate with other types.
Digestives – I add a bit of crushed Marie biscuits to give the balls some texture. You can use any other digestives, Oreo cookies or any other biscuits.
Cocoa powder – The cocoa powder is used in this recipe to give the rum balls a dark brown colour and to enhance the chocolate flavour. This recipe used Hershey’s unsweetened chocolate.
Butter – A little fat to enhance the richness of the rum balls. Salted butter works well with the other ingredients. Use unsalted butter and add a pinch of salt.
Melted chocolate – This will combine all the goodness. You can use any chocolate that you want. To balance out the sweetness, I used dark chocolate. You may need to decrease the amount of chocolate you add to an already-frosted cake or biscuit with cream. Otherwise, your mixture will be too watery and won’t hold together.
Rum – Wanted to keep the best for last. Dark rum is the best choice to give the rum balls their woody notes. If that is not your cup of tea, you can use whiskey or Bourbon.
Spices/Nuts/Dried Fruit
Rum balls can also include spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon, ginger, cashew/almonds, dried fruits such as cranberries, raisins, and nuts like almonds/almonds. This is why I am not adding any spices today. I am using a Christmas cake as a base for this recipe, which also contains the same spices and some nuts/fruits.
You can still make the rum balls even if your cake does not contain them. If you feel the need to infuse more flavour, add 1 tsp of your favourite ground spices and 1/4 cup chopped nuts/dried fruit.
Can you skip the rum?
You can make rum balls, but only if you are sure you won’t. You’ll still have a solid truffle to add endless cheer to your Christmas table.
Orange juice can be substituted for the rum in this recipe. To give it a liquorish taste, you could add some rum essence/rum extract to the recipe.
Garnishing/Coating Rum Balls
You can serve rum balls as-is, or dust them with cocoa powder to give them a more complete look. You can also dip them in melted chocolate or sprinkle them with sprinkles. You can also garnish them with melted white chocolate or grated coconut, chopped nuts, or desiccated coconut.