Vodka spiked center
Ingredients:
2 cups (measured with whole cookies) vanilla wafers
1 1/2 cup sweetened flake coconut dyed red (reserve 1/2 cup for toasting and rolling)
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup raspberry vodka
1 tablespoons plus 1 1/4 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon of seedless raspberry jam
4 oz white chocolate or almond bark for dipping
toasted coconut
Preparation:
Before you go to bed, prepare the mixture to be chilled in the refrigerator over night. Use a food processor (or crush with a rolling pin in a ziploc bag) to chop or crush vanilla wafers into consistent fine crumbles.
Empty into a large mixing bowl. To proceed like the photograph, dye coconut by combining 2 tsp of water with four drops of red food coloring in a ziploc bag and shake until evenly colored red. Next add 1 cup of the dyed coconut and pulse until chopped into bits (or chop with a knife.) Then add the red chopped coconut to the mixing bowl containing crushed wafers. Sift 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar into bowl with wafers and coconut. If you don’t have a sifter shake it through a mesh strainer to get it broken down into a dusting. Mix all ingredients and set aside.
In a smaller mixing bowl mix 1/4 cup raspberry vodka, corn syrup and raspberry jam. Pour this vodka mixture into the larger bowl with the wafer mixture and mix thoroughly. It will look like a lump of dry cookie dough. Allow it to chill in the refrigerator over night or for a few hours. Once it is firm, use a small cookie scooper to create symmetrical balls and roll into balls and place on waxed paper. Allow them to chill again in the refrigerator. You may roll them in sifted powdered sugar or dip them into white chocolate or almond bark. This photograph shows Zinger Balls dipped in white chocolate and then rolled in two-tone red dyed and plain white coconut.
To continue like the photograph, set the oven to 350 degrees and toast remaining 1/2 cup red coconut for about 7 minutes. Careful to watch coconut and use a fork to mix it as needed to prevent burning. I added a handful of plain white coconut half way through toasting to get color variation, but please note it will toast faster because it is not wet like the red coconut. Set the coconut aside to cool and begin melting white chocolate in a double boiler or use a wide bowl on top of a pasta pot with about 3 inches of simmering water.
Once the white chocolate is melted, roll the balls in the white chocolate, set onto waxed paper and sprinkle and press coconut into each vodka ball. Use small foil cupcake liners for a nice presentation. However, if you turn them inside out then the silver shows better.
chop into fine crumbs
- Vodka spiked center
