Rum balls are one of the easiest and most festive cookies to make and gift during the holiday season — they take no time to whip together, require no baking, and are incredibly delicious. Everyone loves them. What’s more? They can be made ahead and frozen, too.
Easy, festive, boozy rum balls — what’s not to love?
The virtues of rum balls include:
short prep time: the batter takes all of about 5 minutes to whip up
no-bake, which means short total time: start to finish these will take about 30 minutes to complete
high-yield: this recipe will make at least 40
taste: they are delicious, boozy bites of goodness
easy: can’t have too many easy recipes around the holidays
festive: perfect for holiday entertaining
pretty: a perfect gift
they can be made ahead of time (and even frozen!) — score!
I can’t think of a more perfect treat to have on hand for the holiday season. And if you’re looking for another low-effort, high-yield cookie recipe to gift all season long, try these melt-in-your-mouth Lemon-Almond Snowball Cookies.
PS: Soft and Chewy Molasses Crinkles
PPS: Simple Classic Shortbread
How to Make Rum Balls, Step by Step
Gather your ingredients: Vanilla wafers, rum, cocoa powder, corn syrup, and confectioners’ sugar.
First: pulse the vanilla wafers in a food processor until they are finely ground:
Next: add the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, and corn syrup:
Finely: Add the rum, and pulse until the ingredients form a cohesive mass:
Transfer the “dough” to a separate vessel. Pour some confectioners sugar into a small, rimmed sheet pan:
Portion the dough into balls using a #100 scoopor a teaspoon or by simply pinching off small pieces and rolling them in your hands. Roll the balls in confectioners’ sugar.
Transfer the confectioners’ sugar-coated balls to a clean tray or storage vessel:
Can You Freeze Rum Balls?
Yes! Simply transfer to an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months. I find these delicious straight from the freezer in fact, but if I am going to serve them, I let them thaw at room temperature overnight. Before serving, re-roll them in powdered sugar to freshen them up 🙂
How to Gift Rum Balls
To gift rum balls, simply find a festive gift box, load with small, paper liners, and load with your delicious, boozy, rum balls. I like these:
Mini Foil Wrappers — perfect rum balls or truffles or anything similarly sized.
Punch Studio book boxes — I can’t find a source for these. My mother found them at Marshall’s a million years ago and passed them along to me. Marshall’s or craft stores such as Michael’s and Hobby Lobby and JoAnn Fabrics are all good spots to find decorative gift boxes.
Stationery boxes work well, too. I ordered a set of 50 many years ago, and I’m still using them around the holidays to gift rum balls, truffles, and chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls.
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Easy, Festive (and Boozy!) Rum Balls Recipe
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5 from 48 reviews
Author:Alexandra Stafford
Total Time:30 minutes
Yield:40 rum balls
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Description
These rum balls are the easiest, best, and most festive cookie to make and gift during the holiday season — they take no time to whip together, require no baking, and are incredibly delicious. What’s more? They can be made ahead and frozen, too.
If you’d like to gift rum balls, you may want to pick up a set of Mini Foil Wrappers, which are perfect for rum balls or truffles or chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls or anything else similarly sized.
A #100 scoopis also particularly helpful for shaping, though you absolutely can use a teaspoon or simply your hands to pinch of portions of the dough and roll into balls.
Ingredients
3+ cups (311 g) vanilla wafers (a whole box of Nilla wafers)
1 cup (120 g) confectioners’ sugar (plus more for rolling)
2 tablespoons (10 g) cocoa powder
2 tablespoons (44 g) white corn syrup
1/3 cup (74 g) rum, plus more as needed
Instructions
Place vanilla wafers in a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. There might be a few large pieces that don’t catch the blade at this step, but they’ll eventually end up getting pulverized, so don’t worry. (Alternatively, place vanilla wafers into a Ziploc bag and bash them with a rolling pin until they are fine pieces).
Add confectioners’ sugar, cocoa and corn syrup and pulse till combined. Add the 1/3 cup rum and pulse to combine. If necessary, slowly add more rum to the food processor until the mixture comes together and forms a mass around the blade or holds together when you pinch it.
Using a teaspoon or a #100 scoop, scoop out balls from the processor, roll them gently with your hands to form balls, then drop them onto a plate (or shallow tupperware) filled with a thin layer of powdered sugar. Shake the vessel to coat the balls, then transfer the balls to an airtight storage container until you are ready to serve them. Store at room temperature for up to a week or freeze for up to 3 months. Bring to room temperature briefly before serving.
This is a no bake recipe, which means any alcohol we use in the process won't be cooked away or made less effective. However, we're not using that much of it, so getting drunk isn't something to worry about! After all, there's only ¼ cup of rum divided among 24 individual bites.
While vanilla wafers are my favorite for their subtle sweetness and vanilla notes, graham crackers, butter cookies, digestive biscuits, or shortbread cookies are all excellent substitutes. For a gluten-free version, opt for gluten-free cookies.
Rum balls are bite-size homemade treats made with vanilla cookie crumbs, pecans, cocoa, confectioners' sugar, and spiced rum. These do taste like spiced rum, so keep that in mind. Although if rum isn't your favorite, you could try making them with bourbon instead.
What you're ultimately looking for is a rich, chocolate-forward flavor laced with rum but not to a biting degree. (Although the alcoholic tang will mellow out as the rum balls sit.)
Leftover rum balls can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature or the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. You can also freeze them; just be sure to bring them to room temperature before serving!
Can a toddler eat Rum Balls? How can I make them kid-friendly? Toddlers and kids shouldn't eat Rum Balls since they contain alcohol. However, our toddler loves chocolate balls, so we simply substitute the rum with water or milk.
You want the mixture to be wet enough that it holds together easily when rolled into a ball, but not so wet that it is soggy and doesn't hold it's shape. If you think it's a little on the dry side, add a splash more rum and give it another good mix.
If you notice the mixture is too dry: The cookie crumbs can make these a little dry, but it's an easy fix! Go on and give it another splash of rum. Otherwise, if you find it's too runny, add a bit more powdered sugar until you reach the right consistency.
What is this? My kid-friendly rum balls are also known as chocolate coconut balls or 'donkey drops' - because of their resemblance to... well... you know what! They're the perfect recipe for getting the kids in the kitchen - you can see how easy it is for my Mr 4 to make them in the video below!
Invented by the Danes, romkugler are indulgent, rich and a little bit tipsy The three main ingredients are chocolate, cake and, of course, rum! This means they lie somewhere in between a cake pop and a chocolate truffle, making them the perfect after-dinner snack.
You will unlikely get drunk from eating rum balls because the alcohol is combined with other ingredients and made into many individual balls. However, the alcohol in the rum does not cook out in these balls because they are not baked.
Stir melted vanilla chips, white sugar, vodka, and corn syrup together in a bowl; mix in vanilla wafers. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour. Pour confectioners' sugar into a shallow bowl. Form vanilla wafer mixture into 1-inch balls and roll in confectioners' sugar to coat.
Keep in mind the rum balls will no longer be dairy- and egg-free if using Nilla Wafers. Cocoa Powder: You can use either unsweetened natural or Dutch-processed cocoa powder. I recommend using a high-quality cocoa powder for best taste. I used high-quality Guittard brand dutched cocoa powder.
Rum balls are a truffle-like confectionery cake of cookie butter flavoured with chocolate and rum. They are roughly the size of a golf ball and often coated in chocolate sprinkles, desiccated coconut, or cocoa. As their name implies, these treats contain rum.
Will rum balls get me drunk? Because they're not baked, the alcohol does not cook off. But you'd have to eat A LOT of them to feel a strong alcohol effect, and these are a treat best enjoyed in moderation!
An average rum cake has around 1/2 cup rum to bake the cake and eating two to three pieces of dry rum cake is too less to get you drunk. However, if you soak the cake in rum after baking and serve it after refrigeration, then eating too much cake can get you a little intoxicated.
In short, the answer from current research is, the less alcohol, the better. A note on drinking level terms used in this Core article: The 2020-2025 U.S. Dietary Guidelines states that for adults who choose to drink alcohol, women should have 1 drink or less in a day and men should have 2 drinks or less in a day.
How Long Does It Take for Rum to Kick In? Alcohol absorbs rapidly into the bloodstream. You may feel effects as quickly as ten minutes, but rum's peak effects generally come between 30-90 minutes after ingestion. If you're drinking on an empty stomach, expect even quicker results.
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