20 Minutes Boozy and Festive Rum Ball Recipe

Rum balls are a classic and festive holiday treat that is super easy to make because they require no baking time and can easily be made in advance, wohoo! This no nut recipe is made from vanilla wafer cookies, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and rum but you can make a non alcoholic version too! Make these in just 20 minutes as part of your holiday dessert table or to gift to some lucky friends.

Boozy? Sprinkles? No Bake? SIGN ME UP! These Rum balls are seriously one of the easiest Christmas or holiday desserts you can make. All you really need for this recipe is a good food processor and some simple ingredients and you can have a fancy looking treat in less than 30 minutes.

There are seriously so many things to love about this recipe, let me count the ways:

• You can easily customize them- cant find the Nilla wafers? Try a different cookie like oatmeal or biscoff.
• Roll them in different toppings like sprinkles, coconut, powdered sugar, nuts- this list goes on!
• They make perfect home made holiday gifts for friends!
• The yield is high- this recipe makes about 2 dozen but you can easily double it. Or you can make more by making them smaller.
• A perfect make ahead dessert when you have a bajillion other things to do.
• A super easy and fun baking activity for the kids once you remove the blade from the food processor.

As a busy mom and a professionally trained pastry chef I LOVE when I find something fun that will keep my kids busy in the kitchen. Yes there is rum in this recipe but it is not a large amount so there really is no need to worry about the kids eating them.

Possibly the best thing about these rum balls besides for the way they taste – chewy, moist, and flavorful- is that they don’t need any bake time. This frees up your oven to make other classic holiday cookies like these snowball cookies (you only need 15 mins to bake!), these no chill cut out sugar cookies or these Eggnog snickerdoodle cookies.

Ready to make them? Grab your food processor and your ingredients and let’s get to (no) baking!

What you need

First and foremost you need a food processor. A stand mixer wont work for this recipe because you need to really grind the ingredients together. You could possibly also make this in a blender but I haven’t tried it. Oooh is that a challenge?

Here’s what else you need:

• Cookies- I used the Nilla wafers but you can also use any store brand vanilla wafers. You can also try using other kinds of cookies like oatmeal cookies or biscoff cookies. Just make sure it is a crunchy cookie and not something too moist, otherwise you won’t get the same texture.
• Powdered sugar
• Cocoa Powder
• Light Corn Syrup- you can also use honey for this.
• Rum- I use Bacardi but you can also use a flavored rum like coconut
• Toppings- Sprinkles, coconut, powdered sugar, crushed cookies, nuts.

A note on nuts

I know traditional recipes use nuts in the actual dough but I chose not to because of an allergy. You still get a good crunch from the cookies and if you use a crunchy topping you won’t miss them at all!

How to make rum balls

To sum up this recipe (please see the recipe card at the bottom for the full recipe) you need to add the cookies into your food processor with the blade already attached. I forgot to add mine in the first time, *face palm*. Pulse it up until its coarse crumbs which you can see in the shot below.

Then add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder and pulse again. The texture should be sandy. Then you’ll add in the wet ingredients- the corn syrup and rum, and pulse again until the dough comes together.

Using a small cookie scoop (1 tbsp) or a kitchen tbsp, scoop the dough and shape like a meatball. Wet your hands to make it easier and then roll the ball in your toppings. Repeat.

TADA THATS IT YOU ARE DONE.

Literally could that be easier?!

Things I did wrong the first time

Aside from forgetting to add the blade to my food processor and having to dump everything out, I thought I could shortcut this recipe even further and just add all the ingredients to the food processor and pulse.

That was a bad idea. The mixture was soupy and gross and I couldnt scoop it up at all. It was a pourable oozy mess.

Thats when I realized they key to getting this recipe right was to grind the cookies first, then add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder, and then add the wet ingredients.

I typically love shortcuts and totally thought adding all the ingredients would be fine but it really didnt work!

If your toppings aren’t sticking

I also had an issue with my toppings not sticking as well as I wanted to. The powdered sugar was fine, but the sprinkles were not sticking as well. To fix this, just wet your hands a little prior to rolling the balls. Then immediately roll in sprinkles or nuts. The moisture from you wet hands will help the sprinkles or other toppings stick better.

How to make without alcohol

To make rum balls non alcoholic you can use rum extract. Since it is a lot more concentrated than actual rum you will only need to use 1/2-1 tbsp depending on how you like the flavor. You will also need to add 1/4 cup water or orange juice (for extra flavor!) to make up for the lack of moisture.

Storing and Freezing

These do well with both! In fact they taste better a day later because the ingredients had time to blend with each other. I like to keep these in the fridge because I like to eat them cold. You could also keep them in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

To freeze- If I am going to freeze them I prefer to freeze without topping them. It makes a big mess when they start to defrost and can make the sprinkles come off. Put them in a zip top bag and squeeze out as much air as you can. Freeze for up to 2 months.

Defrost on the counter or in the fridge overnight. To top them, wet your hands a little and re roll the ball slightly. Then roll in your topping of choice.

Serving and gifting

I like to choose between 3 different toppings to make them look a little different and fun. Then you can place them either all scattered together on a platter, or you can get mini cupcake liners and place each rum ball in a liner and serve like that.

To gift you can add them to a small cookie box and tie them around in a ribbon. Or you can add a few to a glass jar and tie with a note and ribbon.

I love when you share my recipes!!