Rum Balls for Valentine's Day

My mom loves rum balls. So the other day I thought I would pick some up from the local bakery as a Valentine’s gift for her. Oh My Word…..EXPENSIVE ! Yes, I know they are hand made in house. But at $3.50 each, I decided to pass.

Two nights later I decided to bake a chocolate cake. It was beautiful, it was moist. It was in a ring form pan. I turned the pan upside down too early, and the cake split in the center. Half stayed in the pan, the other half was on the cooling rack. Rather than despair, my immediate thought was “hey…I know, I’ll make rum balls.” So I left the cake to finish cooling completely, then put both halves on a plate, wrapped it and put it in the refrigerator.

The next day I took the cake out and let it come to room temperature. Then I crumbled the cake into a bowl and added dark rum. Don’t know how much; just kept adding rum a little at a time until the cake began to hold together when pressed into balls. Then I rolled the moistened crumb mixture into bite sized balls and set them aside.

Next I got out a couple shallow bowls and put my decorating finishes in each. One for powdered sugar mixed with cocoa powder, another for the traditional chocolate sprinkles, another for pastel and one more for rainbow sprinkles.

I discovered there is a trick to making the different coatings stick. For the powdered mixture, I could just roll the ball in the bowl to coat them, and then place them in the mini paper cups. But for the sprinkles I had to find a way to make them stick. I found the best way was to lightly brush the outside of each ball with a bit of the rum, and then roll it around in the bowl with the sprinkles. A bit tedious, but it got the job done.

I have a few candy and chocolate boxes I’ve saved. I find they are perfect for when giving a treat gift; you don’t have to worry about getting your container back and the packaging can be recycled by the recipient. So after placing each rum ball in a mini paper cup, I arranged them in a gold Godiva chocolate box. Tied the box with a pretty red bow and stored it in the refrigerator until the next day.

When mom got the box, she was confused, because a box of chocolates is not something I would normally give her. So when she opened it, she was delightfully surprised.

And for the next couple days I had to smile whenever I heard her say to a guest “Want a rum ball? My daughter made them for me”. It’s nice to have a gift appreciated, but even nicer to know it’s so well received that the recipient wants to share it with others.

And that’s the spirit of giving.

Happy Valentine’s Day