Friday, September 10, 2010

September 10, 2010 Oh, RUM BALLS!!

My new favorite expletive.  It's fun to say now, especially since a new series of men's soap commercials made me laugh out loud.

I looked all over my cookbooks and the internet to find a rum ball recipe, ANY rum ball recipe.  My cookbooks failed me, but I was lucky enough to find several different recipes online, even some that were gluten free.  Unfortunately, every one of them was different, and I couldn't decide which one to use, so I used all of them.  Some of them called for corn syrup, something I didn't have in the fridge (or cupboard), so I went with the ones that didn't.  Then I whittled the recipes down to how much actual work I wanted to do, which was very little.  Here is what I finally came up with, and it was delicious:

I used Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake Mix, and prepared it the way the box said to.  I added about 1/2 cup of gluten-free, dairy free chocolate chips made by Enjoy Life (an allergy-friendly company) after it had baked a little bit so they sort of melted into the cake as it baked.  (I REALLY enjoyed taste testing this after it was cooked.)

After the cake was done and cooled a little bit, it was time for the rum.  One recipe called for 1/4 cup of rum.  That just didn't feel right to me, so I put more.  Don't ask me how much, because it was Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and it tasted pretty good, so I stopped measuring.  You just have to make sure that you don't over-wet the cake.  I could have used a mixer to beat this together, but I did it by hand with a wire masher, which worked just as well, made less noise and was easier to clean up. 

Once it was all nice and squishy, I scooped it out into balls, rolled the balls in minced walnuts (my first batch didn't have walnuts) and then powdered sugar, and placed them on wax paper on a plate.  This went into the fridge for a while (I'm sure half an hour would be sufficient).  Et voila!  Rum Balls!  Quite satisfactory!