Rum Balls are a classic holiday treat. Boozy, chocolatey and rich, store these beauties in the refrigerator for several days for an even better flavor!
Ohio is clearly a little confused in terms of the weather right now. It was sunny and almost 50 degrees today which is a little disappointing considering Christmas is in 4 days and last year we were expecting a huge winter storm around this time.
What can I say? I’m all for a white Christmas.
Despite the warm and sunny weather, we’re checking off items on our holiday baking list one by one.
Rum balls are incredibly easy to make. They’re a great option if you need a treat to share but don’t want to turn on the oven!
Grab a very large bowl to mix everything in, as well as a silicone spatula or a sturdy wooden spoon.
You’re also going to need to crush up some vanilla wafers. You can use a food processor, or put the cookies into a ziptop bag, close it, and use a rolling pin to crush the cookies.
Pour the crushed vanilla wafers into the bowl and add the rest of the dry ingredients to have everything evenly dispersed.
Drizzle in the vanilla, corn syrup, and rum. Stir well to fully incorporate, making sure there are no dry bits.
To make sure they are wet enough, scoop up a bit of the mixture and squeeze it into a ball in your hands. If it stays in a ball shape, you’re ready to roll!
Add small amounts of crushed wafers or more rum as needed to get the perfect texture.
Use a cookie scoop to roll the mixture into 1-inch balls, then toss them in a shallow bowl filled with your favorite coating.
RUM BALL VARIATIONS
Wondering what you could roll your rum balls in?
You could use cocoa powder, powdered sugar (confectioners’ sugar), crushed nuts, sprinkles, shredded coconut, or whatever else strikes your fancy — any of them are delicious.
Remember that you can do a little bit of everything, too! This recipe makes about 20 large rum balls, so I think it’s fun to do several of a few different toppings.
If you roll them in powdered sugar, keep in mind that you may want to re-roll them just before serving, as the powdered sugar tends to absorb a bit while they rest in the refrigerator.
You can also change up the flavor of your rum balls by trying different rum flavors. Instead of spiced rum, try:
Dark rum
Coconut rum
White rum
Vanilla rum
Bourbon
Out of vanilla wafer cookies? No problem! Rum balls can be made with other kinds of crushed cookies too, like graham crackers or butter cookies.
Here’s the best thing about this recipe: They actually taste better when they’re made in advance AND they last forever in the refrigerator.
Ok, maybe not forever. But they will last for quite some time!
Much like fruitcake cookies, rum balls taste better when they’ve had a few days to sit and let the flavor develop.
Just pop them into an airtight container and stick them in the fridge for at least 2 days, and up to a couple of weeks.
You don’t need to store rum balls in the refrigerator as long as you keep them in a cool, dry place, but I find they have the best flavor and last the longest when kept cold.
I keep mine chilled, packed in a holiday tin lined with wax paper, so they’re ready to go in case unexpected company comes by.
Not sure when you might need your rum balls? Freeze them for longer storage! You can freeze rum balls for up to 2 months.
I recommend packing them with as little air as possible, so if you have a vacuum sealer that will work great.
You can also simply use a ziptop freezer bag and remove excess air before sealing. This will keep your rum balls fresh and delicious!
To thaw, simply remove them from the freezer and place in the refrigerator until they are soft enough to bite.
This is such a great make-ahead recipe for holiday parties, gift giving, or your own personal dessert stash.
Yield: 20 large balls
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Rum Balls are a classic holiday treat. Boozy, chocolatey and rich, store these beauties in the refrigerator for several days for an even better flavor!
Ingredients
3 cups crushed vanilla wafers
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup spiced rum
Instructions
In a large bowl, stir together the crushed vanilla wafers, 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar, cocoa, and nuts. Drizzle in vanilla, corn syrup and rum.
Scoop scoop and shape into 1 inch balls or larger. I used about 4 teaspoons of the chocolate mixture per ball which equaled 2 level scoops from a small OXO cookie scoop.
Roll Rum Balls in additional confectioners' sugar, cocoa, sprinkles or whatever strikes your fancy. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for several days to develop the flavor.
Notes
- If you chose to roll your Rum Balls in confectioners; sugar, you may need to recoat them before serving. - I served my Rum Balls in mini cupcake liners that I picked up from Target.
Do rum balls need to be refrigerated? If stored in an airtight container in a cool, dry area, they do not need to be refrigerated. However, I highly recommend storing them in the fridge – they will hold together better, last longer, and taste so much better. They will stay fresh in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Store your rum balls in an airtight container in the fridge to prevent the rum from evaporating and to ensure they keep their shape. Rum balls freeze very well. To freeze, simply add to an airtight container and pop in the freezer until needed.
Unopened liquor has an indefinite shelf life. Opened liquor lasts about a year or two before it goes bad, meaning it starts losing its color and flavor. Don't use a liquor for well drinks if you won't use the whole bottle within two years. It does not generally become toxic, though.
Why are my rum balls sticky? You may have added too much liquid or had too little of the dry ingredients in your mixture. It's an easy fix, though; simply roll the balls again in powdered sugar or cocoa (or a mixture of both) to make them less sticky to the touch.
But they will last for quite some time! Much like fruitcake cookies, rum balls taste better when they've had a few days to sit and let the flavor develop. What is this? Just pop them into an airtight container and stick them in the fridge for at least 2 days, and up to a couple of weeks.
Remember though that a lot of the rum balls taste will come from the rum so make sure it is a rum you like! You can also substitute with other liqueurs - Grand Marnier, Baileys, Bourbon and Brandy are all popular alternatives.
What Kind of Alcohol is Best for Making Vanilla Extract? You can use any alcohol as long as it is 80 proof. The best and most popular choices are vodka, bourbon, brandy, or rum. Vodka is the most versatile because it has a neutral flavor.
I chopped the vanilla beans, but the extract only has a slight taste of vanilla. Editor: If your extract still tastes of alcohol, that shouldn't be of too much concern — especially given you're still on the short end of the steeping time. Wait a bit longer; give it at least another month before calling it.
Use either. 80 proof Alcohol: Vanilla extract is most commonly made from vodka, but you can use bourbon, brandy, or rum instead. I usually use vodka, but the one bottle of bourbon vanilla I made 7 months ago is DIVINE. No need to splurge on expensive alcohol.
Rum balls are a truffle-like confectionery cake of cookie butter flavoured with chocolate and rum. They are roughly the size of a golf ball and often coated in chocolate sprinkles, desiccated coconut, or cocoa. As their name implies, these cookies contain rum.
Can you keep rum in the freezer? The typical household freezer is set to minus 18 C (zero Fahrenheit). Pure rum shouldn't freeze until the temperature falls to minus 27 C (-17 F), so it is safe in your freezer. Rum liqueurs have a lower ABV and therefore freeze more easily.
There's no evidence that keeping liquor at freezer temperatures—even extremely cold freezer temperatures—has any lasting effect on the liquid in the bottle.
Does Rum Cake Contain Alcohol? Though there is rum in both the cake and sauce, a lot of it cooks off during the baking/heating process. That being said, the conventional saying that “all” of the alcohol cooks out during baking isn't completely true.
As temperatures rise, the alcohol begins to expand and can evaporate more quickly. While it won't hurt you healthwise to consume, storing in a warm place can cause the liquor to oxidize more quickly and change flavors over time.
Answer: The conventional wisdom accepted by just about everyone in the food world is that all the alcohol you add to a dish evaporates or dissipates during cooking. It is wrong. In fact, you have to cook something for a good 3 hours to eradicate all traces of alcohol.
Alcohol makes it harder for the brain areas controlling balance, memory, speech, and judgment to do their jobs, resulting in a higher likelihood of injuries and other negative outcomes. Long-term heavy drinking causes alterations in the neurons, such as reductions in their size.
Spirits above 40-per-cent abv (80 proof) don't expire. Anything that's been distilled, such as gin, vodka, rum, tequila or whisky, stops aging once it's been bottled. Most brands are best enjoyed in the first year.
High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems. Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, and rectum. Weakening of the immune system, increasing the chances of getting sick. Learning and memory problems, including dementia and poor school performance.
When you find that the stickiness of the sticky ball is not so good, it is because the surface of the sticky ball has absorbed too many impurities. Just clean the sticky ball with water, and it will be restored to its original state.
You can substitute graham crackers for vanilla wafers. Both will add a nice crispy texture and additional flavor. Roll these easy rum balls in powdered sugar, sprinkles, crushed vanilla wafers, cocoa powder, coconut flakes, or more crushed pecans. You can also leave them plain!
In bowl mix together walnuts, sweet chocolate, sugar and half the egg whites. Add enough rum to moisten mixture so it holds together to form dough. Shape mixture into 1" balls. Roll balls in remaining egg white, then in chocolate sprinkles.
Rum is one of the distilled spirits. It's a stable alcohol, and that means it can be stored for years and still stay fine. So no matter if it's a bottle that's sitting there for years waiting to be enjoyed, or one opened and waiting to be finished, the rum will likely be perfectly fine.
Rum is one of the distilled spirits. It has stable alcohol and strong spirits that means you can store it for many years and still be fine. No matter how long it's kept inside your cabinet, it will be perfectly fine.
Traditionally Danish Rum Balls are also known as Romkugler. Romkugler is found in every bakery in Denmark are very dense, have a rich chocolate taste and a twist of rum. Rum Balls were originally invented by the Danish bakers who were worried at the end of each day when they found unsold cakes at the counter.
The gold standard for sweet but dry white rum that works well in many applications including beverages and desserts such as baked goods, puddings, ice cream, and cakes. Bacardi Gold offers a very sweet, smooth rum that doesn't overpower the other flavors in your recipe.
Madagascar vanilla is known as the best vanilla and what you would think of when you imagine a vanilla bean. It has a heavenly aroma and a rich, creamy vanilla taste. Madagascar vanilla also goes by the name Bourbon vanilla, but it does not have bourbon essentially.
Beans you've already used in a batch of extract can be reused in the next batch. When I siphoned off the vanilla extract from my 18 month batch, almost all of those beans went right back into the jar for the next batch. I simply added a few new beans to punch up the flavour.
Vodka and Mexican vanilla beans are the two key ingredients I use to make this homemade Mexican Vanilla Extract. Mexican vanilla is a rich marriage of sweet and woody notes with deep, spicy character. Its clove and nutmeg-like qualities provide a flavorful culinary twist to all of your favorite recipes.
Every few days give your bottles of vanilla extract a good shake. Since both the vanilla bean pods and their seeds tend to sink to the bottom of the bottle, shaking moves the infused alcohol around, allowing for better and faster extraction.
Finally, at-home extract makers may may notice white fatty-matter appearing on their beans after submersing them in alcohol. It can have the initial appearance of mold, but when you look closely you will see that it is actually the fatty vanillin oils being extracted. They will break down over time.
Vodka produces a cleaner and lighter vanilla extract; bourbon produces a heavier, more complex and moodier, if you will, type of extract. Dark rum, light rum, spiced rum, or brandy will all effect the taste of the final extract compared to vodka, which imparts almost none.
It's simple. Just add sugar. For 1 pint of extract, add up to a tablespoon of cane sugar; for a quart, add 2 tablespoons. This will soften the harsh smell of alcohol and initiate the aging process.
According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to be labelled pure single-fold vanilla extract the liquid must contain 13.35 ounces of natural vanilla beans in every gallon of alcohol. Commercial double-fold pure vanilla extract contains 23 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon of alcohol.
When you add hard liquors to fruit juice, they work as preservatives, preventing juices from spoiling. Rum punch can “survive” for 2 weeks or even more.
How long do peanut butter balls last in the fridge? Place buckeye balls in an air tight container with parchment paper between the layers in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Rum is a very stable spirit and if unopened it will retain its quality and flavour. Once opened, rum can be stored for years without going bad, unless you keep it in an unsealed bottle next to a radiator or in direct sunlight.
Spirits like whiskey, rum, gin, vodka, etc. don't need to be refrigerated because the high alcohol content preserves their integrity. And most liqueurs also have a satisfactorily high alcohol content, as well as sugar that also helps to keep the flavors preserved.
Can eating bourbon balls make you drunk? While bourbon balls certainly contain enough alcohol to taste that it's there, the likelihood of getting drunk off of them is very minimal. Only 1/4 cup of bourbon is used, which is then dispersed among 2-3 cups of other ingredients and then divided into 24 different candies.
Thanks to stabilizers, such as palm oil, that are found in processed versions of peanut butter, the product has a long shelf life; this means you do not need to refrigerate it, says Dr.
Unopened peanut butter can last for months or even years after the “best by” date, depending on how much preservatives it contains. What is this? Opened peanut butter, if stored in the fridge, can stay fine to use for at least a few months past the date on the package.
Introduction: My name is Stevie Stamm, I am a colorful, sparkling, splendid, vast, open, hilarious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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