Saturday, January 5, 2013

Rum Balls

As the name suggest this recipe contain good amount of Rum and is only for adults. This recipe is one of the easiest of all. There is no cooking involved in this recipe( except for toasting nuts). Just combine all ingredients in to a dough and make a small balls..

This recipe should be made well in advance of Christmas, say like in 1st week of December.. as it should age well before consumption for it to taste better. It should be made around the same time of making Fruit Cake.. The end product after ageing is very smooth -texture wise and you get the kick of rum while eating it and just melts in your mouth.


shweysfoodjourney
Rum Balls
This recipe is adopted from joyofbaking.com with little modification.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (150 gms) Ground Almond/ Walnuts( toasted and ground- make sure you dont grind it to paste but just till it resembles breadcrumbs) ( I used only Almonds)
1 1/4 cups (125 gms) Finely Chrushed Biscuits(I used Marie Biscuit)
1/2 cup (60 gms)  Powdered Sugar
2 tbsp (15 gms) Cocoa Powder
2 tbsp Honey (or corn syrup or golden syrup, I used Honey)
1/4 cup (60 ml) Rum

Method

Once you prepare all the above ingredients there is nothing much left then to combine all and mix them thoroughly in a bowl. Once it resembles like dough cover the bowl with cling film and chill in the refrigerator for an hour.

After an hour, remove the cling film and make small balls of one inch each and keep on a baking sheet. You can make around 38 to 40 Rum balls out of this.

There are different ways to decorate the Rum balls. One way is to roll it in Icing Sugar, or in ground nuts, or Cocoa Powder or Dipping it in Chocolate. As you can see I did half the balls with the icing sugar and another half with chocolate dipping.

If  you wanna dip the balls in chocolate, put the balls back in refrigerator for 10 minutes.
Line a Parchment paper(butter paper) on the baking sheet and keep aside. Now remove the balls after 10 minutes and make the chocolate mixture. Take about 120 gms of chocolate and 1 tsp of butter in a heat proof bowl and melt them in double boiler. Once melted, remove from fire and dip the balls and coat them evenly on all sides and very gently remove them using the fork, let the extra drip down and arrange them on Baking sheet with butter paper. Do this with all the remaining balls and arrange them on the sheet well apart from each other. When all are done, place the baking sheet in the fridge and chill till the chocolate is set, say around 30-40 minutes. Once the chocolate is hardened, you can drizzle the rum balls with melted white chocolate( which I omitted  as I didnt get the white chocolate).

This can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for several weeks..
 

Friday, January 4, 2013

Raisin Cookies

Happy New Year 2013 once again..

As mentioned earlier, cookies were my weakest point, I couldnt get them right.. The problem which I realised was an uneven shapes of cookies and hence not good results... So this time I rolled the dough in a log and chilled it in refrigerator overnight. Then the next day cut it in equal size shapes and baked it in preheated oven and the results were amazing...

 
Ingredients

1 cup (226 gms) Butter
3/4 th cup Sugar
1 large Egg
1 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
2 2/3 cups (345 gms) Flour (Maida)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 cups chopped Raisins

Method

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (for around 3-4 minutes) using electric hand mixer. Add vanilla and egg and beat again until properly incorporated..

In a seperate bowl sift the flour and mix it along with baking powder and whisk till incorporated.. And add this mixture in to the butter mixture and mix it using wooden spoon until it becomes a dough. Use your hands if you find it bit difficult to use the spoon like I did. Divide the dough in three balls and try to roll them into a nice smooth log and roll them in cling film and let it refrigerate overnight..
 
Next day line a baking sheet and preheat the oven at 190 degrees celcius. Cut the cookie dough in an equal size 1/2 inch thick squares and  bake it for 10 to 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before you store in an airtight container.

 
 
 

Kuswar(Complete Christmas Delicacies)

This is the complete list of Kuswar that I made this time for Christmas..


Starting from Top left and going clockwise,
  1. Gifts for community members
  2. Raisin Cookies
  3. Rum Balls
  4. Traditional Fruit Cake (with rum and wine )
  5. Boiled Fruit Cake(w/o alcohol)
  6. Savoury Shankarpali
  7. Brownies
  8. Semolina and Coconut Cake
This Christmas was very special compare to all my earlier ones.. Not only because I made all the above goodies, but also because I distributed them to so many people.. like for example.. Gifts for our Community Members included Semolina and Coconut Cake, rum balls and Raisin Cookies; Brownies were made for Orphan Kids at Vidyankur near our Church.. One batch of Semolina and Coconut Cake was for my Sis in law to distribute in office and Shakarpali and Fruit Cakes were for us...

I did try one Eggless Chocolate cake (forgot to take the pic) and distributed it when people came home for Carol singing on 23rd Dec..

You will see recipes for all the above goodies in my coming post...

Happy New Year to all you followers.. Have a safe and fun filled 2013...Cheers!!!!