- Hey, you're watching Preppy Kitchen
where I, John Kanell teach you how to make
delicious homemade recipes to share
with your family and friends.
Today, we're making something that
is either a cookie, a candy, a special treat,
or just some pure amazingness.
It's a rum ball, and they should not be
relegated to the holidays because they're beyond delicious.
Just a few ingredients, no baking,
and they come together in like five minutes.
The rum doesn't bake off, I might've eaten some already.
Let's get started!
First off we're gonna crush some vanilla wafers.
And if you're like, "what is a vanilla wafer?"
that was me, I had no idea because I saw
these recipes, vanilla wafers,
and was like imagining some kind of like
a wafer, Kit Kat situation.
No!
These guys, I grew up calling these
Nilla wafers or Nilla cookies.
You can let me know in the comments what you called them
but these are vanilla wafers.
We're using like, almost a whole bag,
so we wanna end up with two cups of pulverized ones plus
a quarter cup for rolling.
If you don't have a food processor you could totally
do this in a bag with a rolling pin,
a can, and a little bit of pent up anger.
And of course, in case you're wondering
where I'm at, this is a rental house
with a new kitchen, which you can click up here for
my initial update, is dragging on.
(lid clicks into place)
Okay, pulse.
(plastic creaks)
Oh.
(plastic creaks)
(blending and upbeat music begins)
Okay, gonna use this massive novelty cup
which I found at the rental house.
Measure out two cups.
There we go.
That's for rolling, set that aside.
This is for our rum balls.
Oh my gosh it works.
Is is for soup or something?
I don't know.
Right, the extra ones I'm setting aside in here.
We'll be rolling some of our rum balls in that later.
(plastic clicks into place)
Now for the pecans.
(musical vocalizing)
Okay, these are straight out of the oven.
They're really hot.
I almost always toast nuts when
I'm using them in a recipe.
It really gives you a nice depth of flavor
and, you know, I think they're a little bit crunchier too.
We're gonna pulse this.
You wanna have them pulverized but not go too crazy
because it then will turn into a nut butter.
(blender whirs softly)
There we are, that was... (taps blender)
just right.
It's like steaming up cause it's hot
but it's okay.
It's okay, careful.
This smells amazing,
oh my gosh.
That goes in there too, all of this goes away.
Rounding the corner with our dry ingredients.
Right now we have a cup of confectioner's sugar,
gonna sift that into there too,
along with two tablespoons of cocoa powder.
This is a nice one.
You can use any cocoa powder you'd like
but a nice one is always better.
Last ingredient for the dry mixture
is half a teaspoon of salt.
Sift that out.
See this nonsense here?
Mm-mm, not in my house, not around my kids.
(soft music)
We're gonna whisk these ingredients up.
Just mix em up.
This reminds me of Puppy Chow right now,
but so much better.
Have you had Puppy Chow?
It's also called like Muddie Buddies and other like
Moose Munch, stuff like that.
I have a recipe for it on the blog.
You can click up here for that.
It's really good and snacky.
This is nice.
Set this aside, and now there is just a little
bit of a wet ingredient situation going on here
so we're gonna handle that.
Okay, now for the fun stuff.
We're gonna use 1/3 of a cup,
and that's a very liberal 1/3 of a cup mind you,
of a nice spiced, dark rum.
This one is from Saint Lucia (sniffs)
and it smells so good.
I've tried sipping it and it's a little sweet for me.
I had friends who were really into sipping rums
so there was like all these different brands
that you get a really intense flavor.
This one's a little sweet but it's perfect
for desserts like this.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What is this?
No, that doesn't even count.
That's for the, no.
Okay, now we'll start.
Here, 1/3 of a cup.
That's 1/3 of a cup.
Just in case you're wondering how to measure
1/3 of a cup of rum.
And then this was for the honey, silly me.
Little bit of honey in here.
I've been watching Mary Berry.
She has like, Mary Berry Everyday.
If you don't know who she is, she's an icon,
and I learned this is called runny honey.
I've never heard that before
until I watched her show, but it makes total sense.
Gonna use this oversized whisk,
and just whisk in the honey so it dissolves.
A lot of rum ball recipes use corn syrup
but I don't think that's in any way necessary.
It just doesn't make sense.
Okay, so we're gonna pour the wet
into the dry and mix it up.
And if you're noticing some dry spots you can add
any wet ingredient you want in to help bind things up.
Anything you want.
Pour those wet ingredients in.
(breathes deeply and sighs loudly)
Smells so good.
And you really taste the rum here
so you should use one that you like drinking.
Don't go and buy something
that comes in a plastic container.
You deserve more!
You know, Ina Garten always says you should use
a wine that you would enjoy drinking with dinner.
Same thing here, it's an excellent rule.
Ina we love you.
(chuckles)
You're my hero.
You know, once, I saw Ina and Jeffery walking
hand-in-hand in Central Park and I was like
(gasps) oh my god.
(chuckles)
I didn't bother them but I saw it.
I saw it happen and that's it look.
This is your rum ball mixture right now.
So if you notice it's a little bit wet
add in some more of the crushed Nilla wafers.
If it's a bit dry add a little bit more honey or rum.
And it will be a little wetter in the beginning,
it will dry out over time.
So if you're making this the day ahead
don't worry about it being wet.
It's fine.
All we have to do now is to roll it out.
And let me tell you, when I was recipe testing this
it'd be like, roll-a roll-a roll-a,
nibble nibble nibble, roll-a roll-a roll-a,
nibble nibble nibble, because this is like it's done
and it's (whispers) so good, oh my gosh it's so good.
(laughs)
Choose whatever you wanna roll it in.
You can roll it in the cookie pieces, that looks nice.
These are really soft and luscious.
So here I'm rolling them in the cookie bits,
the cocoa powder, and the powdered sugar.
All of them are delicious.
I think my favorite was the cookie.
Continue that process.
You'll probably wanna wash your hands every once in a while
because it'll get kinda gunky
but that's how it works when you're rolling things.
If you are into this recipe,
after you make this, check out my Brandy Chocolate Truffles.
Those are very similar but different but so good.
They look really similar but they taste
more chocolatey and it's brandy instead
so it's totally different.
(chuckles)
If you don't like this recipe check out my Cookie Playlist.
It has all of my favorite cookies
and you might find a new favorite one there too.
All right, now it's time for a bite.
Rum didn't burn off baby!
These have everything.
There's like, there's chocolate, there's rum,
there's like crunchy cookies, there's rum,
there's toasted pecans, there's rum.
I don't know what else you could need.
It's so good.
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