Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

         I made some rum balls on Friday for an early Valentine's Day present. I realize that making rum balls normally isn't that big of a deal, but making them here in Japan did require a bit of improvising. I used a wonderful recipe that I've had for a few years and often get requests for when people taste these rum balls. These things are great, probably mostly due to the high concentration of alcohol in them!
 Here's the adapted recipe along with notes on what the original recipe was supposed to include in italics...
   
INGREDIENTS:
   3 dark chocolate bars for a total of 180 grams of chocolate (I used Morinaga)
        the original recipe called for 1 cup of chocolate chips
   1/2 cup sugar
   3 tablespoons of mizu ame (syrup; you'll find it next to things like maple syrup at the store)
               this was supposed to be corn syrup, but good luck finding corn syrup in Japan
   1/2 cup dark rum (I used a 1/4 cup white rum and a 1/4 brandy this time, mainly because we ran out of   rum, but it turned out quite well)
   about 2 to 2 1/4 cups finely ground/crushed chocolate corn flakes (this should be the amount AFTER crushing, not before) Basically, buy a bag of corn flakes, any flavor, and crush it
      the original recipe calls for vanilla wafer cookies, again it's hard to find those here!
  1/2 cup finely chopped almonds or walnuts
  cocoa powder, powdered sugar, or more finely chopped nuts, for coating the rum balls

Melt the chocolate in the microwave--heat it in 30 second intervals, stirring after each, until it's completely melted. This should take about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes or so. Stir in the sugar and the syrup, mixing well. Then stir in the rum, again mixing well. After that, simply stir in the ground corn flakes or cookies, followed by the chopped nuts. Once everything is combined, form small teaspoon-size balls and roll them in your choice of cocoa powder, powdered sugar, etc, to coat. Refrigerate for about 2 hours before serving. Store any remaining rum balls in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator. 

  There you have it. Easy recipe, although if you've never made rum balls before, be prepared that they'll take longer to make than you'd expect. Oh, and I don't recommend driving for a while if you have more than a couple of them!


                 I coated some in cocoa powder and some in powdered sugar

           Wasabi inspecting the final product