Easy Rum Balls

• 2 cups finely crushed vanilla wafers
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1 cup powdered sugar (120g)
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅓ cup dark rum
• 2 tablespoons honey

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the wafer crumbs, pecans, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the rum and honey together until the honey is completely dissolved. Add the rum mixture to the dry ingredients and mix together with a spatula until the mixture is moistened evenly and holds together when squeezed. If there’s any dry pocket, just pour a splash or rum in and mix.
3. Use a tablespoon to scoop out enough of the mixture to make a ball that’s just over an inch in diameter. Roll out in the palms of your clean hands to make smooth balls. Roll the rum balls in more powdered sugar, cocoa powder, wafer crumbs, or pecans to coat. Rum balls can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks or frozen for up to 3 months. They taste better after aging for a few days.

NOTES

• Crush the vanilla wafers until they are fine crumbs. That is, aim for the crumbs to have a consistent sand-like texture. The vanilla wafers are the base of the dough for this no-bake rum balls recipe and will blend together with the other ingredients best if they are fine crumbs. Use a rolling pin to crush the cookies in a ziptop bag, or pulse them in a food processor.
• Toast the pecans. The flavor of pecans is deepened when toasted, so I always recommend using toasted pecans in this recipe. If you haven’t done this before, see my instructions on how to toast pecans.
• Whisk the honey into the rum. To evenly distribute the honey, whisk it into the rum before adding it to the dry ingredients.
• Add more rum to help the dough come together. If the dough has dry pockets after you mix the rum and honey into the dry ingredients, add an additional splash of rum and continue mixing until the dough comes together enough to hold together when squeezed. This will help the balls to adhere together better.
• Use a cookie scoop. To quickly form equally-sized balls, use a small cookie scoop to portion the dough.
• Roll the balls in confectioner’s sugar, wafer crumbs, pecans, or cocoa powder. After forming each ball, immediately roll it in sugar, vanilla wafer crumbs, finely chopped pecans, or cocoa powder. The coating adds flavor, and visual interest, and prevents the balls from sticking together when stored. You can also get creative and drizzle these with melted chocolate, dip in milk chocolate, or coat the balls in chocolate sprinkles, colored granulated sugar, or other types of nuts.
• Optional: bourbon balls variation. Make these boozy rum balls bourbon balls instead by substituting your favorite bourbon in place of the dark rum.
• Optional: alcohol-free variation. Make these with cold brewed coffee with 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or rum flavor added in place of the rum.