Seems last week’s Retro Brown Sugar Bacon Bow Ties launched a few other strolls down holiday-themed memory lanes for our friends out there.
Friend Drew in Idaho Falls sent me scurrying to days long ago with this email –
…so as soon as I read your food post about the Bacon Bow Ties yesterday I flashed back to the long trips we used to take driving down to spend Holidays with my mother’s family in Baton Rouge.
My Gammy (Ruth to the grown ups) wasn’t raised there but moved to Baton Rouge as a young 19 year old bride, rolled up her sleeves, ended up running a small family farm when my grandfather died early, and became a wonderful Southern cook.
I’ve never tasted better gumbo and grillades, though her treats around Christmas time were my absolute favorites. She baked dozens of dozens of all sorts of cookies, made an amazing fruitcake from yellowed newsprint cut out of the Atlanta Constitution Journal, and all sorts of candies.
She made a special treat for my Dad every time we came down – what he called her Baton Rouge Rum Balls. There are a thousand different variations of rum and bourbon balls floating around, and you can be damned sure they’ll be served by the millions again this holiday season, but Gammy’s were the best I’ve ever come across.
She said the secrets were to not use butter to bind them as is common in many of the old recipes, toasting the pecans, adding a bit of cocoa powder instead of dipping the finished balls in (paraffin-tainted) chocolate, and finally using molasses or sorghum (go easy, it’s sweeter) instead of corn syrup.
They work well with either rum or bourbon; Gammy and my Dad thought the rum was always better…
My Mama made ‘em too, and we faithfully hid them every time the “church folk” would come around.
Box of vanilla wafer cookies, crush to fine crumbs (11 ounce box)
1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided
1 cup toasted pecans, cooled and finely chopped
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup molasses, sorghum (syrup), or dark corn syrup
1/3 cup (or more) dark rum or bourbon
Stir together the vanilla wafer crumbs, 1 cup of the powdered sugar, the chopped pecans and the and cocoa powder.
Now stir in the the rum and whichever of the syrups you’re using; combine well.
Shape into roughly 1-inch balls (use your hands like your Grandma did); chill for two hours.
Roll in the remaining 1/2 cup of powdered sugar (or whatever else you’d prefer).
These won’t last; store tightly covered and can be frozen too.
Enjoy.
