Bourbon Balls with a Bite
During our cookie baking extravaganza on Saturday we made bourbon balls.
After pouring over various recipe websites for a good recipe we decided on the fairly standard recipe of ‘Nilla Wafers, nuts, cocoa powder, corn syrup and bourbon. After opening my spice cabinet to pull out the cocoa powder I noticed my tin of Dagoba Xocolatl that contains chilis and cinnamon and thought that might be a great idea. We made some recipe substitutions and added in a couple tablespoons of the xocolatl powder. It was spicy, but the initial bourbon flavor overpowered the chilies. The aftertaste, however, was pure chili. Then my fellow cookie-baker, Lisa, decided to add some cayenne pepper and chocolate chips to the mix. The results are delicious. 30 hours after they were made, the bourbon flavor has evaporated off a bit and the peppery flavor has moved to center stage.
Delicious!
Anyone who enjoys being adventurous with their chocolate really ought to try these bourbon balls for a spicy twist on an old favorite!
I'll try them
If you have any left, I’m game.
So.. what's the recipe?
I can infer a bit from your description, but with substitutions on substitutions… what exactly did you do?
Chili Bourbon Balls
2 cups fine vanilla wafer or Graham cracker crumbs
1/4 C (or less to taste) powdered sugar (original recipe has 1c)
1 cup finely ground pecans or walnuts
3 T Dagoba Xocolatl hot cocoa mix (Original recipe had 3T unsweetened cocoa powder) Xocolatl has chili and cinnamon powder in it.
3 tablespoons light or dark corn syrup
1/4 cup bourbon or any whiskey (we probably had more like 1/2c)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Cocoa and/or powdered sugar for coating
1 T cayenne pepper (possibly more, I didn’t add the cayenne)
1/2 C chocolate chips (optional – it adds a little extra chocolate to mix with the chili flavor)