In the years that I’ve lived in New Hampshire, many of the Thanksgiving dinners with Dave’s family have been held at his cousin’s house in central Massachusetts. I remember the days when we could just waltz in, enjoy our meal, and even take pictures, blog and scrapbook and do all the crafty stuff that I used to do before kids. Then there were a couple of years when the babies were coming that we couldn’t even go at all, and ended up eating leftover Chinese food for Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves. And now, finally, we’re back on our feet again with a little more freedom and kids who can tag along to family events.
One of the things that I often bring to Thanksgiving dinner are rum balls! They’re super easy and require no baking, and they have to be made nearly a week in advance so there are clearly many logistical advantages to this. And they involve rum!!
The ingredients are simple and few:
Adapted from Allrecpies.com Rum Balls I recipe, which according to my records, I first saved to my box in 2003:
3 cups vanilla wafer crumbs (or, 1 box)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 cup rum + enough water to make 1/3 cup total liquid
extra confectioner’s sugar for rolling the balls
Instructions: Mix, and roll mixture into 1 inch balls, and then roll in remaining confectioners’ sugar. Store, covered, about a week before serving.
A few notes on how I do it: I use 1 12 oz box of Nilla wafers (store brand is nasty and does not taste as good), no idea how much that works out to be but it works fine. I don’t have a food processor so I just bang the hell out of it in a bag, and chop the pecans as fine as I can with a knife. I’m all high-tech. Also, I really like spiced rum in these for an extra nice flavor. The original recipe calls for mostly water + a small amount of rum extract which I find offensive, so I just use almost all real rum in place of the liquid for that. You may want to wet the palms of your hands with water before rolling. It will seriously get messy.
Here, ready to form the balls and roll in the powdered sugar and place into airtight tin for storage. Note: put the camera down because this is about to get messy.
They must go into an airtight container for at least 5 days or so, more if you can get away with it. And you must re-roll them in powdered sugar before serving them, as it will all get absorbed. Yummy! They’re wonderful to enjoy for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s….
