Cherry ripe rum balls

Not as good as it looked

A month or so ago Paul asked me to make him a chocolate cake. This is a pretty unusual request for him, but when he does ask for a dessert he is quite specific about what he wants. He didn't want a layer cake. He didn't want a light chocolate sponge. He wanted a dense, moist, thin chocolate cake with a layer of chocolate glaze. This Martha Stewart recipe seemed like just the thing. Only, it wasn't.

It wasn't particularly moist and it just wasn't the cake he was after. It was fine but not wow, and if we are going to eat a cake it really should be wow.

So we weren't going to eat it as it was, but there was no way I was going to waste it, either. Years ago I made a brilliant trifle with a disappointing chocolate cake and I thought this might meet the same destiny, so I tucked it away in the freezer for an opportune moment. As the glaze was just a ganache, and I wasn't planning to serve the cake in its original form I wasn't too worried about it thawing strangely.

There it sat.

Then last weekend our sister in law came to lunch. I decided not to make a full-on dessert, but instead to turn some of my frozen cake into rum balls.

Chocolate dipped rum balls

A lot of recipes I found were American, using crushed wafers and marshmallow fluff and weird processed things, but I wanted an old-school Australian-style rum ball. I followed this recipe, substituting some of my birthday boozy cherries and their preserving liquid for the rum and raisins, in a tribute to the chocolate, cherries and coconut of the classic Cherry Ripe. Then, instead of rolling them in chocolate sprinkles, I dipped them in tempered dark chocolate. It wasn't my most successful attempt at tempering; it was so cold in the kitchen that I think the temperature fell too quickly, so while they had a good texture, they weren't quite as glossy as I would have liked.

I still have enough cake in the freezer to make another batch, so I might make some more for Christmas. With even more booze this time.