Chocolate Rum Balls

Considering how much we love chocolate here, it's rather surprising that it's taken this long before a chocolate recipe has made its appearance.

For some reason, Christmas foods seem more boozy than other holiday foods. There's fruit cake, eggnog, and rum balls.

I had my first rum ball in graduate school at the Departmental Christmas party. I was expecting a giant chocolate truffle, and was a little startled to find otherwise.

Since my grad school days, I've developed a more refined palate (or rather, a greater appreciation for the subtleties of alcohol), and quite like rum balls. They're less heavy than traditional truffles, and less sweet. They're also really easy to make--basically crumbled cake, brownies or wafers, bound together with a good shot of rum.

I typically split a full recipe in two, making half with rum, and half with icing for a non-alcoholic cake ball. They are naturally a little sticky, and can easily be coated with chocolate shavings, cocoa powder, icing sugar, sanding sugar, or dipped in chocolate.

Chocolate Rum Balls
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Yield: ~32 large rum balls

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

6 ounces (170 g) semisweet chocolate chips

3 large eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons rum (I used Bacardi Gold)
chocolate shavings, for rolling

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a large, 12-by-17-inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Melt butter and chocolate in a small heatproof bowl set in the microwave, on low power, stirring every 30 seconds. Set aside.
2. Mix together eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, salt and espresso powder in a large bowl. Stir in chocolate mixture, and then fold in flour. Pour batter into prepared baking sheet. Spread evenly with a rubber spatula. Bake until top is shiny and a cake tester inserted into center comes out with some crumbs attached, about 10 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Do not over-bake, you want this to be moist as it makes it easier to shape into balls.
3. Transfer brownie into a bowl, and using a fork, break into crumbs. Pour in rum to taste, start with 1/4 cup and add more if desired. Using a fork or spatula, mix the rum into the brownie until the crumbs should stick together when pinched lightly.
4. Using a dough-scoop, shape into ~1-inch balls.
5. Run a vegetable peeler along a chilled block of chocolate to make shavings. Roll the rum ball in the shavings to coat. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until cold, for at least 2 hours. The flavour is said to improve if they "age" for several days, but I've never been able to wait that long. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

To make half as rum balls and half as cake balls, divide the baked brownie in half and proceed as described above. Add about 2-3 tablespoons of rum to one half, and about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cream cheese frosting to the other half. Add more cream cheese if you want a sweeter and moister cake ball.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone has an opinion of what makes a perfect chocolate chip cookie--soft & chewy, thin & crispy, chips or chunks.  While there isn't a chocolate chip cookie that I won't eat, I always crave this version made by my mom. They're crispy and airy, with a nutty undertone (but no nuts!), and one bite sends me spiraling back to my childhood.

When we were small, my mom would make huge batches of these cookies. There would be some in the glass jar in the cupboard, as well as a backup stash in a giant Tupperware bin.

I don't know what makes these cookies so good. The original recipe was published by Kellogg's in a bid to sell more All Bran cereal, and was a bizarre concoction of trendy 80s ingredients (i.e. shortening, margarine and bran) thrown together in an attempt to "healthify" the chocolate chip cookie.

I've modified the recipe somewhat, mainly because I don't like buying crazy amounts of All Bran (it's embarrassing and expensive). And while I've replaced the margarine with butter, the texture suffers without the shortening. I remember these cookies being crispy, although that appears to be more the result of the extremely dry Edmonton environment, so I've played with the ratio of brown and white sugars to re-create that snap.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
from the kitchen of Estella Lee and Kellogg's

makes ~36 cookies


2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup bran 
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup loosely packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 1.5 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F
Stir together flour, bran, baking soda,and salt.
Beat butter, shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar until fluffy and well blended.
Beat in eggs and vanilla extract.
Mix in dry ingredients.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop by tablespoon or cookie scoop onto greased or lined baking sheets.
Bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes until lightly browned. For extra crispy cookies, let them cool in the oven with the door propped open.

-These cookies will spread quite a bit, but if you want a denser cookie, just refrigerate them until firm before baking.
-The cookie dough freezes well. Portion out the dough and freeze on a cookie sheet. You can transfer them to a ziploc bag once they are frozen.