What is the most important ingredient in baking? Not just for Christmas biscuits, but for everything, including cakes, tarts and so on? Flour? Sugar? Eggs?
Nope. The correct answer is rum. So rum balls are the crowning glory of Christmas baking, right?
I mean that quite sincerely, by the way, and without a hint of irony. Rum is in practically everything sweet that leaves my kitchen. Okay, sometimes it's Cointreau, cognac or even calvados instead of rum, but I use rum in vast quantities. And no, I don't drink it!
I just really like the rum flavour. In some things, it's even indispensable, for example in apricot jam. And no one needs to worry, as long as the sweet treat has been baked or cooked. Alcohol evaporates very quickly, leaving behind the flavour.
Back to the rum balls, I seem to have digressed a little. They are one of my absolute favourites, every year! Incidentally, I was allowed to eat rum balls as a child (which are NOT baked). Perhaps you're now thinking, ‘That explains a lot’ 😅. But take a look at the ratio of the mixture to the rum used in the recipe. You get more blood alcohol from naturally cloudy apple juice (which you can actually buy, by the way).
My mother used to pimp the rum balls and fill them with cherries preserved in rum. I thought it was awful. I sucked the rum ball dough off the cherry and threw away the offending piece of fruit.
But today, that sounds really delicious to me. So if you want to make large rum balls with a WOW effect, simply soak some cherries from a jar in rum a few days beforehand and coat them with the rum ball mixture. It will be brilliant, and the rum flavoured with cherry juice is not to be sneezed at either.
Rum chocolate balls without alcohol
Now we come to a rather sad part of this recipe post, namely rum balls without alcohol.
Joking aside, there are many people who cannot or do not want to consume alcohol, and mothers who are more concerned than mine.
There are two possibilities:
Non-alcoholic rum balls with rum flavouring: Simply use rum flavouring from the baking section of the supermarket and replace the liquid with orange juice.
Non-alcoholic rum balls without rum flavouring: Simply replace the liquid with orange juice or coconut milk.
Wer heute in Backlaune gerät kann sich ja noch an ein paar anderen Keksen von mir probieren. Wie wäre es mit pistachio ginger slices? ❤
Ingredients
Method
- Knead all ingredients in a bowl until smooth.
- Roll balls of equal size in your hands.
- Roll in chocolate sprinkles, coconut flakes or brittle.
- Place the finished balls in chocolate moulds and store in a cool place.
