This recipe is very popular at Christmas, but I tend to make it any time I want something slightly different than just traditional chocolate truffles. The addition of cake crumbs in this rum truffle recipe is just genius, and it makes these ever so slightly addictive.
You can easily swap a normal sponge cake for a gluten-free one to create truffles suitable for people with gluten sensitivity. You can also use a chocolate cake instead of Madeira cake for extra chocolate taste.
If you want to, you can also leave out the rum if you are making these with children or use rum essence (you’ll need about one teaspoon, depending on the strength of your essence). The rum can be swapped for any other alcohol, but flavour wise rum seems to work well with chocolate.
KEEP THIS RECIPE – PIN IT FOR LATER
MORE CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE RECIPES
Once made, these rum truffles with cake crumbs last up to 7 days, but I have to say they usually disappear a lot quicker than that.
These chocolate rum truffles with cake crumbs are also a perfect gift to take to your friends or a dinner party. Just pack them in pretty boxes or bags with a ribbon and a little gift tag and your friends will love you forever!
Why make this recipe?
- Easy to make without any equipment or fancy ingredients
- Great taste
- Fab way to use up spare (or slightly old) cake
- Great base recipe for cake pops
My top tips on making this recipe successfully the first time round
Roll the truffles one at the time and roll them in the chocolate strands or cocoa powder straightaway. If you make them first and then roll them in the chocolate strands they won’t stick as they will be too cold.
Don’t stir the chocolate and cream too soon, otherwise the ganache might split
What makes this recipe work
The fab combination of cake and chocolate, which makes these truffles soft and moreish.
Any specialist equipment needed?
You might like to use catering gloves for rolling out the chocolate truffles, but other than that, no there is nothing special you will need for this recipe.
Pro tip
If you are making a smaller amount (like 1/2 of the recipe) warm up the cream and chocolate at the same time. The cream doesn’t need to boil, it just needs to be warm enough to melt the chocolate, so if you melt them together, you’ll save time.
Variation on this recipe
- Gluten free – use gluten free vanilla cake
- Dairy free – use plant based cream
- Alcohol free – use an essence or don’t use alcohol at all (add more vanilla essence if you like)
MORE CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE RECIPES
Ingredients & Possible Substitutions
- Madeira cake or any simple vanilla sponge cake
- double cream (or single cream – dairy or plant based)
- dark plain chocolate or milk, if you prefer a sweeter version
- rum (optional)
- vanilla extract
- Tiny pinch of salt mixed in the vanilla extract to dissolve
- Milk or dark chocolate soft vermicelli or cocoa powder to roll your chocolate truffles in
How else you can make these truffles?
These cake truffles were originally inspired by the popular cake truffles available in the shops around Christmas time.
The main difference is that the shop bought version also includes fruit juice from lots of different fruits, lemon juice finely milled nuts and rum essence.
To make this recipe at home (or at least as close to the shop bought one as possible) add the following (in small quantities first, then taste it and add more if needed)
- 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
- 1-2 tablespoons of seedless raisins (blended)
The method
Place the cake sponge in a bowl and crumble the cake either by rubbing with your hands (it’s best to use catering food gloves for this) or using a food processor.
Heat the double cream and bring it to boil.
Add the chopped up chocolate and leave to melt. If the mixture is too cold to melt, just heat it gently until all chocolate is melted. This can be done easily in a microwave.
Add the vanilla extract and the pinch of salt to the cream mixture and blend in. When nearly cold, add the rum or rum essence and then add into the cake crumbs and mix well till evenly combined.
Using your catering gloves again, take about a large teaspoon of the mixture together and form a ball.
While the cake mixture is still sticky, roll in the chocolate vermicelli, making sure that the whole truffle is nicely covered.
Repeat with the remaining mixture.
Refrigerate for 30 minutes until firm and serve straightaway.
Batch size
I usually get about 35-40 regular size chocolate truffles from this recipe, but it will depends on how big or small you make yours.
Can I scale up or down this recipe?
Yes, absolutely! I often make just 1/2 of this recipe, which is about 18 truffles. You can easily double or triple the recipe ingredients to make more truffles.
The 275g of cake is based on a shop bought Madeira cake which you can buy in most supermarkets, so if you want to double or triple your recipe, just buy 2 or 3 cakes (or bake equivalent in weight).
This recipe is also perfect for making cakesicles or cake pops, where you usually need more than just one batch.
Shelf life
To be on a safe side, eat these truffles within 7 days, although their actual expiry date might be a little longer than that.
The alcohol will help to preserve them, but since we’ve not use any other preservatives and we’ve not rolled the truffles in a tempered chocolate to seal the truffles in, only make them for immediate use.
How to store these truffles
Keep the truffles wrapped or stored in an airtight container in cold, dark place, but not in a fridge.
Chocolate Truffles Troubleshooting
These Rum truffle with cake crumbs are fairly straightforward to make, so hopefully you won’t have any difficulties in making these.
But if you do, head over to my Chocolate Truffle Questions & Answer Guide that will help you to troubleshoot any problems you might be having with your chocolate truffle making.
Confectionery inspiration from my blog
This recipe and me
These cake truffles remind me a type of cake dessert sold in a sweet shops when I was growing up. It was quite large (like 4-5 cm) and round and was called ‘ the potato’. Probably not the nicest name anyone could have invented, but I guess it was because the cake ball was not perfectly round and rolled in cocoa powder resembling the actual potato.
I remember my mum would buy us one ‘potato’ each, so we wouldn’t need to share and I quite often could not even finish mine. As delicious as it was, it was also quite filling!
When I first made this recipe I didn’t get the chance to take any photos, so it’s quite fitting that when I was recently re-doing this recipe, I chatted to my mum online at the same time.
Why not stay in touch…
I hope you enjoy making this recipe and if you do, I’d love to know what you think! Let me know in the comments below or find me on Instagram or Facebook and add the hashtag #cocoaandheart so that I can see your post.
Or why not subscribe to my weekly newsletter with new recipes and baking tips straight to your mailbox.
Magdalena
Rum Truffles with Cake Crumbs
Ingredients
- 270 g Madeira cake or any simple vanilla sponge cake
- 50 mil double cream
- 100 g dark plain chocolate or milk, if you prefer sweeter version
- 3 tablespoons of rum or to taste!
- ½ teaspoon of a good quality vanilla extract
- Tiny pinch of salt mixed in the vanilla extract to dissolve
- Milk or dark chocolate soft vermicelli or cocoa powder to roll your chocolate truffles in
Instructions
- Place the cake sponge in a bowl and crumble the cake either by rubbing with your hands (it’s best to use catering food gloves for this) or using a food processor.
- Heat the double cream and bring it to boil.
- Add the chopped up chocolate and leave to melt. If the mixture is too cold to melt, just heat it gently until all chocolate is melted. This can be done easily in a microwave.
- Add the vanilla extract and the pinch of salt to the cream mixture and blend in. When nearly cold, add the rum or rum essence and then add into the cake crumbs and mix well till evenly combined.
- Using your catering gloves again, take about a large teaspoon of the mixture together and form a ball.
- While the cake mixture is still sticky, roll in the chocolate vermicelli, making sure that the whole truffle is nicely covered.
- Repeat with the remaining mixture.
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes until firm and serve straightaway.
What a delicious recipe – I was looking for something a bit different to give as presents for my family, so I made your truffles! Apparently, they haven’t lasted very long and everyone loved them – I only managed to keep a few for myself. I’m definitely going to make them again.
Delicious. We have similar rum balls in Germany. They look so good.
Ooh, how delicious. I’ve not had a rum truffle for years and years and years. I used to buy them from our local bakery. I suspect they weren’t as good as yours, but I was young and had a less refined palate back then. I’ve made chocolate cake truffles, but they’re a bit different. Will have to give these a try.
Pinned.
These are the kind of truffles I grew up with – I’m always quite disappointed with the ganache only type!
LOVE the look of these chocolate rum truffles, and I imagine they would be very popular at Easter, as well as Christmas too! Thanks for adding them to #CookBlogShare week 11, Karen
I adore these truffles! what a combination of rum and cocoa. Yum yum!
I agree, forget Xmas, this is an all-year recipe! I love the cake crumbs idea in this recipe.