The best Australian rum balls

Rum balls are a holiday/birthday essential in my Aussie husband’s family. Much like spinach balls are to the Fitzpatricks, rum balls are to the Holmeses. Jared was born on Christmas Day, so they’re doubly important. It’s not a birthday—or Christmas— without a batch of rum balls (or two).

As a result, I associate rum balls with Australians, even though they’re surely a worldwide phenomenon. To get this rum ball recipe *just right* my husband swears you need to use Australian ingredients, though my unsophisticated rum ball palette can’t always tell the difference.

I’ve been attempting to reproduce my mother-in-law’s recipe for over a decade, and I think I’ve finally nailed it. This is an exceedingly easy (if somewhat messy) recipe, and—while purists may disagree—forgiving when it comes to substitutions.

Aussie rum ball ingredients

Colleen’s rum ball recipe calls for six ingredients:

• 250g arrowroot biscuits
• 2 cups desiccated coconut (1 cup for the mixture, 1 cup to roll in)
• 1/3 cup mixed nuts
• 395g condensed milk
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3 TBSP dark rum

Arrowroot biscuits

These biscuits (cookies to Americans) are the trickiest ingredient to source in the US. They’re common in Australian supermarkets, where they come in 250g sleeves—Arnott’s is one of the most common brands. Arrowroot cookies are soft and easy to eat, which is why you can sometimes find them in the baby food aisle! I’ve also used animal crackers in a pinch.

Desiccated coconut (unsweetened)

Coconut flakes have been my undoing in the past when making rum balls. Desiccated coconut is not interchangeable with shredded coconut or flakes, as it’ll impact the texture. The rum ball recipe calls for putting coconut in the mix and rolling them in coconut at the end, so it’s important! Like arrowroot biscuits, I’ve had trouble finding unsweetened desiccated coconut in US grocery stores. My workaround is to buy unsweetened shredded coconut and run it through a food processor for a few seconds until it takes on a fine texture.

Crushed mixed nuts

Thankfully, mixed nuts are easy to source! I recommend doing a rough chop of the nuts first, or throwing them whole into the food processor with everything else. If you put them in the food processor first, they’ll end up too fine in the final product and you want them to add a little bit of texture to your rum balls. Full disclosure, I processed the nuts in the video above before adding them to the rest of the ingredients, and it was a mistake. You want more crunch in there.

Sweetened condensed milk

I’ve never seen unsweetened condensed milk so I’m not sure if it’s even a thing. You need a full can and I highly recommend a mini-spatula to get all of that sticky sweetness out of there.

Unsweetened cocoa powder

This is where I could tell you to go for the high-quality cocoa powder because it makes a big difference, but honestly? I doubt anyone will notice. But do go unsweetened or the rum balls will be sickly.

Dark rum

I use spiced rum for rum balls—if I were in Australia I’d probably use Bundaberg, which is a sweeter, amber-colored rum. More recently I’ve been using Appleton Estates spiced rum, but good old Captain Morgan or similar would do just fine. I actually doubled the amount of rum from my mother-in-law’s original recipe from 1.5 TBSP to 3 TBSP, but I suspect she freehands it so we’re probably still on the same page.

And before anyone asks if you can skip the rum in these…I guess you can, but then they’d just be balls.

Your call.

How to make rum balls

These are *really* easy to make, but you do need a food processor—or, in a pinch, a blender could work—to do the job well. If you don’t have one, you’ll have to put the arrowroot biscuits in a plastic bag and smash them with a rolling pin. In my experience this is always way messier and more time-consuming than it sounds, and I’m inevitably left with large chunks of biscuit.

These take about 30 minutes to make, and most of that time is spent rolling the balls up and coating them in coconut. If you can recruit helpers, you’ll be done in no time.

1. Pulse your biscuits in the food processor. Stop at the fine crumb stage. If you create powder or paste you’ve gone too far.

2. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and pulse. That’s cocoa powder, mixed nuts, and 1 cup of the desiccated or shredded coconut. Pulse until all ingredients are incorporated. Note that the photo shows shredded coconut—for this step, shredded coconut works just fine. For step 5 you’ll need dessicated but luckily you can make it out of your shredded coconut (see notes in ingredients section above).

3. Add the can of condensed milk. This will get sticky so do your best to avoid getting it everywhere. I use a mini spatula to empty out the can.

4. Add 3 TBSP rum and pulse until wet and dry ingredients are combined. It’ll slow down as the mixture thickens, this is what you want.

5. Roll mixture into ping-pong-sized balls, then roll in coconut to coat. If you like bigger balls, by all means make them bigger. I like to get 2-3 bites out of each one, similar to a perfect spinach ball.

6. Refrigerate rum balls in an airtight container for at least 4 hours. While you *can* eat them right away, they taste better cold. Rum balls allegedly stay good in the fridge for up to 2 weeks (ours always get eaten within a week), and taste even better as the flavors develop.

Tips for making Colleen’s Aussie rum balls

• If you don’t have dessicated coconut, pulse shredded coconut in the food processor before you start to get your 1 cup for rolling. You can also do this with a blender—I use a little Ninja. Trust me it’s worth it.
• Under no circumstances should you use sweetened coconut flakes. It gets messy, clumpy, and the taste is off (ask me how I know).
• Dampen your hands before rolling up the balls. This gets very messy and sticky, and if your hands are ever-so-slightly wet it’s easier to roll.

Pin it for later