Gluten-free Rum Balls
Rum balls are a popular dessert all around Europe, and definitely one of my favorite holiday treats. There are typically two kinds of rum balls. The first kind is a no-bake kind that consists of chocolate, butter, cookies, or grated nuts (depending on the recipe) and, of course, rum. The second kind is the one that I love the most. It is made of cake leftovers (or freshly baked of course), chocolate, butter, jam, and rum. So, it´s basically like a cake pop…well, cake pop for adults :). And today I want to share with you a recipe for this lovely, moist, chocolatey bite-size dessert, that is also gluten-free!
What you´ll need for these gluten-free rum balls:
Sponge cake- I will write the recipe for the gluten-free sponge cake that I used if you want to bake it fresh to make these rum balls. If you don´t feel like baking, you can use a store-bought sponge cake (gluten-free or a "normal" one). It also doesn´t matter if you use a chocolate or plain sponge cake. I used a plain one, but if you decide to use a chocolate one, just reduce the amount of cocoa or omit it completely.
Jam- I usually use the apricot jam for these gluten-free rum balls. In my opinion, the apricot jam compliments the chocolate very well. It also adds a bit of a sour note to this dessert without over-dominating the other flavors. That being said, you can use any other jam that you prefer. This is just my preference. If you are not a fan of jam, you can also use Nutella (or any other chocolate spread) instead of it. Just keep in mind that Nutella will bring additional sweetness, which may or may not be to your liking.
Chocolate- for this recipe, I used semi-dark chocolate (around 50% cocoa). But you can also use dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or even white chocolate if you want your rum balls to be light-colored.
Rum- no gluten-free rum balls without rum of course. For this recipe, I used 60% Stroh rum. If you are using a stronger or lighter rum, feel free to adjust the amount of it. You can also adjust the amount of rum to your liking of course. I prefer to have a lot of rum flavor but I don´t like tasting the alcohol in the rum balls. That is why I adapted this recipe to my liking. If you don´t mind the flavor of alcohol, you can add more rum, of course.
Something to roll the rum balls in- this time I rolled the rum balls in shredded coconut for the final touch. I don´t always use coconut, though. Sometimes I also use chocolate sprinkles, or chopped or grated nuts… depending on how I feel at the moment.
Other than that you will need some butter and cocoa, which are pretty self-explanatory, and of course, the ingredients for the sponge cake, if you decide to bake it yourself.
- 125 grams gluten-free flour mix for cakes
- 75 grams sugar
- 50 milliliters oil (any flavorlessvegetable oil)
- 75 milliliters milk
- 2 small eggs
- 10 grams vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 500 grams sponge cake (self-made or bought)
- 100 grams chocolate
- 60 milliliters dark rum
- 60 grams apricot jam (add more if your sponge cake is dry)
- 40 grams butter
- 20 grams dark cocoa
- 300 grams chocolate (for dipping)
- shredded coconut, nuts or chocolate sprinkles
- For the gluten-free sponge cake:
- Using a hand mixer beat the eggs with sugar and vanilla sugar until the batter becomes pale and fluffy. Add all the wet ingredients to it and mix until combined
- In another bowl combine flour with baking powder and salt.
- Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Add them slowly and mix thoroughly to avoid clumps.
- Choose a smaller baking tray. You want to have as much as possible of the soft inside part and minimize the crust. Pour it into the baking tray and bake at 180 C until golden.
- For the rum balls:
- Take 500 g of the sponge cake. It is best to remove the crust and take as much as possible from the soft inside of the cake. Now crumble it into a bowl
- Melt chocolate and butter using a water bath or microwaving it in short intervals (so that the chocolate doesn´t burn)
- Add all the ingredients to the cake crumbles and combine them well with your hands. Once you´re done, put it for cooling in the fridge for cca 2 hours.
- Once the cake mixture has cooled, you can form the rum balls.
- Melt 300 g of chocolate using a water bath (if the chocolate is too thick, you can add a Tbsp of vegetable oil).
- Prepare a bowl with shredded coconut or your topping of choice.
- Dip each ball in chocolate and then immediately in coconut.
- Leave the rum balls to cool down so that the chocolate can set.