The Best Christmas Rum Balls

By Lee Price on December 13, 2012 in Food

Christmas is the best excuse all year to get stuck into some great food. Sure, presents are nice, wine is lovely, and family and friends are important (of course), but for the love of god, how good are the ham, turkey, brie, mince pies and the mangoes (I could go on)?!

Now I am a firm believer that a homemade treat tastes even better than a store bought one, and this really simple recipe is perfect for even a novice cook – it actually doesn’t require any cooking at all.

These rum balls will last for weeks in the freezer, so why not get a few batches done and pull them out a couple of hours before you need them to soften slightly. Once you taste them you’ll wonder why we don’t eat them all year round. Now there’s a thought…

Ingredients (makes around 24)

1 pack (250g) Nice biscuits
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ cup desiccated coconut
1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (or ½ tsp of the real stuff)
1 ½ tablespoons rum (use rum essence if you’d like it kid friendly)
2/3 cup sultanas
¾ cup desiccated coconut, for coating

Directions

1. Using a rolling pin, squash the Nice biscuits in their packet to break them up. Pour the broken biscuits and crumbs into a food processor, add the cocoa and whiz until finely crumbed.

2. Pour the fine crumbs into a large mixing bowl. Add all of the other ingredients (except the extra coconut) and mix well with a wooden spoon. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to harden up a little – this will make it easier to roll later. In the meantime pour the extra coconut into a large baking dish and spread out evenly over the base.

3. After 30 minutes is up, wet your hands and pinch a little of the mixture, rolling into a ball about the width of a twenty-cent piece. Roll the ball in the coconut until coated and place on a wire rack. Keep rolling and you should end up with about two-dozen rum balls, depending how much of the mixture you eat before you’re done (or is that just me?). Place into a single layer in a Tupperware container and chill in the fridge overnight to harden and intensify in flavour.

4. Once chilled, wrap in plastic cellophane and tie with festive ribbon. These make a lovely gift if you can bear to give them away.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Have you got a great recipe that you would like to share? Send it through to operationjamjar@y7mail.com and you could see it in a future issue of The Beast. For more recipes and thrifty cooking ideas visit operationjamjar.blogspot.com.