Rum Balls and Risotto

For my first Christmas as a vegan I really wanted to veganise my standard rum ball recipe to bring along to the family dos. Two days before Christmas that dream was shattered as a trip to my local health food store found the stocks of Soymilke had been depleted and were not going to be replenished for a few weeks :-(

After poking around at Vic Markets last Saturday I dropped into Global Green Vegetarian across the road to pick up a few bits and pieces and was delighted to find some Soymilke on the shelves!!! So last night I trialled some vegan rum balls with great success - better late than never...

Dinner for me and hubby was risotto which he normally loves but this one didn't hit the spot. I choose the Green Pea and Lemon Risotto with Roasted Capsicums from Veganomicon which turned out a tad overpowering on lemon front. Pretty sure this is my first fail from Veganomicon, it's not a recipe that will be repeated.

Edited to add: Peppermint and orange essenses can be substituted for rum to give these chocolately balls a totally different flavour. If this sounds more like your thing, take a look at my posts about choc-mint balls and jaffa balls.


Vegan Rum Balls
250g packet Arnott's Nice biscuits
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
330g can Soymilke soy condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essense
1 tablespoon light rum (or 2 if you prefer a bigger rum flavour)
Extra desiccated coconut, for coating

Place biscuits in a food processor and process until biscuits are a fine powder. Add the cocoa and 1/2 cup coconut and pulse a few times. Transfer mixture to a bowl then add the soy condensed milk, vanilla essense and rum and mix together until everything is well combined.

Place mixture in refrigerator for about 30 minutes which gives it a firmer texture and makes it easier to roll the balls. If the mixture is too soft, it gets very sticky and difficult to roll properly and the rum balls will not hold their shape.

Place extra coconut in a bowl. Roll spoonfuls of mixture into balls with your hands, and then coat in coconut. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.