I sat down and devised this recipe because I wanted a fantastic rum ball with a lot of kick. It wasn’t until I didn’t cook these for work one year that I realized how excellent they were. I was almost lynched! Needless to say, over the past 20 years, I’ve baked them every year. These taste best when made with cool Meyers Original Dark Rum® and ‘Nilla wafer cookies from Nabisco®. If you prepare them two days in advance, they will be at their best. 30 minutes before serving, remove from refrigerator.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 5 mins |
| Additional Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 2 dozen rum balls |
Ingredients
- 1 (12 ounce) box vanilla wafer cookies (such as Nilla®)
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- ¼ cup light corn syrup
- ¾ cup dark rum (such as Meyer’s®)
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting
Instructions
- Place vanilla cookies in a food processor and process into fine crumbs.
- Heat chocolate chips and corn syrup together in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and smooth, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in rum and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Fold in cookie crumbs; dough will be sticky.
- Place saucepan in the refrigerator until dough is firm and easy to roll, about 15 minutes. Cover 2 plates with waxed paper; dust with confectioners’ sugar.
- Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on the prepared plates. Dust rum balls with confectioners’ sugar. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
- Remove rum balls from refrigerator and transfer to a resealable bag, including the extra confectioners’ sugar. Seal the bag and shake to coat the rum balls completely with confectioners’ sugar.
- You will find that you will probably use more than just a cup of confectioners’ sugar…you won’t hurt the recipe one bit.
Reviews
Made the original recipe. Also made it with less rum. Both were big hits.
Perfect & simple
First of all, this recipe does not have too much rum. I don’t understand why people complain that rum balls have too much rum, it just defeats the purpose of them. Yes, they are strong in flavor, but I personally like them that way. Overall, I really like this recipe. These rum balls are always a hit with friends, family and coworkers. They are easy to make and absolutely addictive (you can’t eat just one). That being said, I have made a couple of modifications. Instead of corn syrup, I use honey (same amount) and I omit the powdered sugar altogether. The rum balls are sweet enough without the sugar, you just have to chill them a little longer to firm them up. I also roll them in some unsweetened cocoa powder.
I had a recipe very much like this and lost it! I am SO HAPPY to have found this recipe. Try making these with crushed Oreo crumbs (available in the baking aisle of the store near the pie crusts) or crushed chocolate graham crackers.
Replace the cup of sugar with a cup of finely chopped pecans. Now it becomes almost guilt free and you discover the complex satisfying taste that the sugar was hiding.
Good! I used graham cracker crumbs and Dark Rum.
Rum or bourbon balls have always been a family holiday tradition. I usually make the ones that call for cocoa powder and nuts but this time I took a chance on these! I finely ground the wafers and I added ground pecans (because we all like nuts).. I doubled the recipe and made half rum and half bourbon.. at first I was a little concerned that the batter was going to be too soft (it was to the point of kinda flowing off my spatula), but by the time I got the bowl scraped and put in another container to cool, it firmed up nicely! This is my new go-to Rum ball recipe! I usually make these at least a week ahead of time! We all think they get better the longer they age!
It came out too liquidy to form balls. I added an additional 1/2c of nilla wafers (had bought 2 boxes) which did the trick, but bleah–they taste boozy and gummy.
Delicious. The first time I ever made rum balls, about a month ago, I used a recipe that called for cocoa powder. It was too dry. This recipe is the second time I’ve made rum balls. I purposely sought out a recipe that use chocolate chips instead of the dry cocoa powder. This one is so much more moist and creamy; just delicious.
I love this recipe! Absolutely fantastic! Just a few ingredients and a little bit of time and these are well worth it!
no changes
I used 5 oz of Kraken rum and 1oz of St. Germain liqueur. Quite delightful.
Very good, dough was a little sticky so I added a little more sugar, everyone loved them
I used Bacardi dark rum.. figured like a wine, use what you would drink. These are amazing for the rum lover or secrete rum lover! I even dusted some with cocoa powder and powdered sugar. Would highly recommend
Great recipe! These came out perfectly and were a huge hit at our Christmas party!
i am now making my 3rd batch. Great rum kick. I did add ground up nuts but the recipe would be just as good without them. I ended up using a little more confectioners sugar to soak up some of the stickiness and also left the concoction in the refrigerator for about 4 hours before shaping into balls. The challenge will be not to eat any before giving them as Christmas presents.
Boozy sugar bombs, these were just not for us. It tasted more like rum fudge than anything. Nostalgia made me make this, but I recall more of a cake texture than this. Just not my thing.
melting the chocolate chips in the corn syrup made all the difference and these are AWESOME….
Wonderful recipe! I used a dark spiced rum for some and bourbon for another batch. I gave them as holiday gifts.
Made it? I made it twice! This was an awesomely easy recipe. I had so many compliments. It’s an ‘easy travel’ thing to bring to a party. Stores in a ziplock….. 🙂
These are just like my mom made many years ago when I was at home.