Happy Holidays everyone! I hope this time of year is bringing you some extra love and moments of peace. One of my favorite activities during the holidays, like most of you, is to make Christmas cookies! Now, I'm especially lucky, because not only do we bake some wonderful traditional American cookies, but we also make cookies from my Mother's childhood. My mom, Babi, immigrated to America when she was 12 years old with her mother, we call her Nana, from Czechoslovakia. They have some of the most incredible, and sometimes tragic, stories from their lives.  And when we spend time baking and cooking together, I get to hear a lot of them. It's a magical time to spend with my closest family members and to learn about them in a way that makes me feel like we've lived in two different worlds. I hope you get to experience the same. Either with your family, strangers, or even through videos like this. 

So welcome to our family! The video above is going over our sacred rum ball recipe, passed down from generation to generation, with no clear start. I'm not only passing this on to my biological family, but I'm passing it on to my creative family as well. All of you! 

Now let me give you the biggest warning: THESE COOKIES CONTAIN ALCOHOL. Not rum flavoring. Not rum extract. The alcohol is not cooked out. These delicious little cookies will warm you up from the inside out. But if you are not of age or have any family members that stay away from alcohol, please keep these away from them.

Below is the recipe as well as the basic instructions. These take about 30 minutes to make, but there's no real need to rush through them. If you prefer, you can download the PDF for the recipe here.

OklaRoots Family Rum Ball Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 cup (+extra for rolling) granulated sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup rum (more or less depending on taste)

Directions:

Make sure to finely chop the graham crackers and walnuts. Mix the graham crumbs, cocoa powder, granulated sugar, salt and walnuts together. Mix the honey and rum in a small bowl well. Poor the honey/rum mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well. This step works best by using your hands. 

Roll balls into golf ball size. Since these are not baked, you can make them any size you want. Roll the balls in granulated sugar. Place finished rum balls in a tin or box lined with waxed paper. 

We like to keep our rum balls in the freezer. They taste great straight out of the freezer, or sit out for about 20 minutes first.

Enjoy and welcome to our family!!  Let me know if you make any! If you share photos of these on social media make sure to tag me! I'm @oklaroots on Instagram and Facebook!