Rum Balls (Cognac Balls)

Usually we make a double portion

300 g of vanilla rusks (Recently bought Britannia Wheat Rusk in Michael's)  

100 g of butter

3/4 cup of Milk

2 cups of sugar

1/4 cup of cognac

3 tablespoons of Cocoa + more cocoa for the finish

Raisins, Walnuts, Dried apricots - to taste. (Usually we make 1/2 cup of the crushed nuts and 1/2 cup of dried apricots and raisins together)

Decoration: buttercream, coconut crumbs, or sliced almonds  

Turn the rusks through a meat grinder, chop raisins and dried apricots into small pieces, crush nuts and mix all that together. Add the cocoa and stir the dry mixture to a smooth color.

Heat the milk and melt the butter in it. Do not let it boil. Add sugar and dissolve it in milk stirring over low heat until the sugar stops crackling. 

Pour the hot mixture into a dry mixture and stir until it's smooth. Add cognac and stir again. When measuring 1/4 cup of cognac is customary to pour a little more cognac than necessary and then sip it out and add more. The procedure can be repeated several times to measure 1/4 cup as accurately as possible.

Ready mixture to cool first to room temperature, and then in the refrigerator (or in another cold place). This stage takes several hours.

From the cooled mixture make balls by rolling spoonful amount between your palms. The size can vary by your choice. When ball is ready, roll in on a plate with cocoa so it stops being sticky. When all balls are done, sprinkle them with more cocoa from the sieve for beauty. Alternatively, you can roll the balls in coconut crumbs. You can decorate the balls with spikes of buttercream (so they look like potatoes). To do that, poke small holes using chopstick to keep buttercream spikes in place. You can also decorate with sliced almonds, or nothing.