A healthier rum ball recipe that’s free from corn syrup, refined powdered sugar, and flour. Filled with healthy fats and under 2 grams of net carbs per serving.
Last year, I made this FREE Christmas Baking Ingredient Checklist – a list of 26 ingredients that every paleo, vegan and grain-free kitchen should have on hand for a successful (healthy) holiday baking experience.
When you get started on your Christmas baking grocery list, do hemp hearts make the cut? I’ve got to tell you… they probably should. Heck, they most definitely should.
Why Hemp Hearts are Great for Holiday Baking…
They’re nutty. Making them a great addition to nut-based holiday recipes. Either as a full-on replacement, or subbed with half of the original ingredient and half hemp hearts. Either way, the nutty factor will remain!
They act like flour. Especially in no bake recipes. In today’s recipe, I swapped out the flour for hemp hearts, 100%. Worked like a charm.
They’re loaded with protein. 1 serving of hemp hearts has 10 grams of plant-based protein, your baked goods will fill you up far more than flour-based goodies.
They’re high in omegas. Over 10 grams per serving! So, you’ll be doing your body + brain a favor while enjoying the holiday festivities.
Many of the grain-free, vegan, paleo Christmas desserts in my Christmas Dessert Freedom Cookbook use hemp hearts. Booyah!
My favorite hemp heart brand is Manitoba Harvest. You can find their products in most grocery stores (including Costco). Very accessible and affordable.
So, these rum balls… they have rum. If you don’t do alcohol, that’s okay. I’ve included instructions on how to use other ingredients in place of rum.
If you’re rockin’ a ketogenic eating style and have questions about alcohol… I’d like to offer up a bit of clarification. From what I’ve read, when a keto-fueled individual consumes alcohol the process of the body using fat as fuel is halted. This is until the alcohol is burned up in the system. For a small treat like this, it’s likely to be a couple of hours. During that time span, your ketone numbers will likely drop. When I was testing this recipe, 1 ball reduced my number by 0.8mmol/l, but it was right back at a solid number the next day. This is likely because it was such a small amount of rum. Larger quantities would take longer for the body to process.
Small disclaimer, right?
Okay, let’s get on with the hemp heart holiday baking… and in this case un-baking. Seriously, this recipe takes all of 15 minutes.
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Grain-free Christmas Rum Balls
Author: Leanne Vogel
Recipe type: Vegan, Paleo, Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-free, Yeast-free, Corn-free, Grain-free, Egg-free, Low-Carb, Keto
Prep time:
15 mins
Total time:
15 mins
Serves: 12
A healthier rum ball recipe without corn syrup, refined powdered sugar or flour. 100% vegan, paleo, dairy-free, low-carb + keto. Under 2 grams net carbs per serving.
Ingredients
¼ cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut
¾ cup Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts
½ cup high-quality cacao powder or Manitoba Harvest Hemp Pro 70, Chocolate Flavor
⅓ cup almond flour
2 tablespoons dark rum
2 tablespoons coconut oil
15 drops alcohol-free liquid stevia or 2 tablespoons coconut sugar (if Hemp Pro is not used)
pinch sea salt
Instructions
Line a baking sheet or plate with parchment paper or a silicon baking sheet. Set aside.
Place shredded coconut in a small bowl. Set aside.
Add remaining ingredients to the bowl of your food processor.
Pulse until mixture forms a ball, about 30-45 seconds.
Pinch 1 ½ tablespoons of dough and roll between your hands to form a ball. Drop the ball into the coconut and roll around until coated.
Place the completed ball on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough.
Transfer baking sheet to the fridge or freezer to set for one hour.
These grain-free rum balls hold up well at room temperature and can be frozen for up to 1 month.
Notes
Stevia or Coconut Sugar: I used stevia for this recipe because I like the taste. However, if you do not like stevia, or aren’t living sugar-free, you can use coconut sugar in this recipe. Another sugar-free option would be xylitol. If Xylitol is used, you could try 2 tablespoons, ground before adding to the recipe.
Rum: if you don’t like rum at all, don’t add it! You could replace it with water, some vanilla extract or your favorite coconut milk.
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Once all of the ingredients (except the coconut) has been added to the bowl of your food processor, process until a ball forms, like this.
Pinch dough, and roll into golf ball-sized balls, like this…
Then (the funnest part!) roll each of the balls in coconut. This used to be my job when I was a kid, helping my Mom with our Christmas baking. Pretty sure I ate half the coconut before it reached the bowl.
Place the balls back on the sheet and refrigerate to set.
Dig right in!
There you have it, another delicious rum ball recipe to add to my collection, and yours! And hey, this one is actually pretty darn good. No sugar… at all! Not even 1 gram.
Have you used hemp hearts in your holiday baking before?