Rum flavored "pearls" for your holiday drinks (brown sugar, powder, cheese)

[elnina]

A friend of mine made something a few months ago that blew my mind. It’s called Rum Pearls, and it’s barely sweetened rum in the form of little golden spheres, just like tapioca pearls. Very easy to do.
Try first a small amount ( for 2 drinks ) and if you like it just multiply the recipe.

You will need:

Vegetable oil - 20 oz ( will be reused, you must chill it between batches)
Dark rum - 3/4 cup
Agar-agar powder - 2 grams (which can be found in Asian markets, or the ethnic section of some grocery stores, most health food markets or you can just buy it from Amazon)
Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
Tall, narrow drinking glass
Eye dropper
Very important is to make sure your measurements are just right.


- Fill your tall, narrow glass with vegetable oil. The taller your glass is, the better it will work. Place the glass of oil in the freezer and chill for 30 minutes.
- When 30 minutes is up, stir 3/4 cup dark rum and 2 grams agar-agar powder in a saucepan on high heat until it begins to boil. Quickly add 1/4 cup brown sugar, stir to dissolve sugar, bring back to a boil, and remove from heat. (the sugar is important because it adds density to the rum and makes it sink in the oil - without it, your rum would float at the top and make little half-spheres)
- Let the rum mixture sit for about 2 minutes and remove the vegetable oil from the freezer.
- With one hand hold your tall glass with cold oil, with other suck up the rum mixture in an eye dropper and squeeze little drops of the mixture into the cold oil. Move your oils, to prevent drops from falling on top each other.
As the rum collects into spheres, it will become heavy and drop through the oil, cool off, and lay waiting for you to scoop it up from the bottom.
Work quickly because the rum will solidify in the saucepan. If this does happen, you can melt it again on low heat, being sure to stir constantly, and continue the spherification process.
- Once you’re finished, either scoop the balls out with a small slotted spoon or pour through a mesh sieve or cheesecloth to collect the spheres from the oil. Drop them in cold water for a few seconds to wash the oil off and you’re ready to go.

TIP: if you’re making a lot of this and don’t want to go to the hassle of making little balls, you can just let the mixture cool and solidify in the sauce pan, then put it through a food processor. It comes out looking like little shards of glass, which is also really cool-looking.

You can store it in an airtight container, in the fridge, with a few tablespoons of water at the bottom. You can store it for several weeks, and when you make them for X-Mas, you will have plenty left for your New Year drink. It will impress your guests!

Use:
- for cocktails that call for rum - 1:1.5 ratio (if a cocktail calls for 1 oz of rum, try 1,5 oz of rum pearls)
- as a drink itself – it’s a wonderful treat all by itself, served with a spoon.
- over ice cream and bananas
and
- if you serve eggnog to drinking and non-drinking guests just make a batch of non-alcohol eggnog, and spoon in some of the Rum Pearls for your drinking guests.
People will still be talking about it next year!

[20yrsinBranson]

Originally Posted by elnina

A friend of mine made something a few months ago that blew my mind. It’s called Rum Pearls, and it’s barely sweetened rum in the form of little golden spheres, just like tapioca pearls. Very easy to do.
Try first a small amount ( for 2 drinks ) and if you like it just multiply the recipe.

You will need:

Vegetable oil - 20 oz ( will be reused, you must chill it between batches)
Dark rum - 3/4 cup
Agar-agar powder - 2 grams (which can be found in Asian markets, or the ethnic section of some grocery stores, most health food markets or you can just buy it from Amazon)
Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
Tall, narrow drinking glass
Eye dropper
Very important is to make sure your measurements are just right.


- Fill your tall, narrow glass with vegetable oil. The taller your glass is, the better it will work. Place the glass of oil in the freezer and chill for 30 minutes.
- When 30 minutes is up, stir 3/4 cup dark rum and 2 grams agar-agar powder in a saucepan on high heat until it begins to boil. Quickly add 1/4 cup brown sugar, stir to dissolve sugar, bring back to a boil, and remove from heat. (the sugar is important because it adds density to the rum and makes it sink in the oil - without it, your rum would float at the top and make little half-spheres)
- Let the rum mixture sit for about 2 minutes and remove the vegetable oil from the freezer.
- With one hand hold your tall glass with cold oil, with other suck up the rum mixture in an eye dropper and squeeze little drops of the mixture into the cold oil. Move your oils, to prevent drops from falling on top each other.
As the rum collects into spheres, it will become heavy and drop through the oil, cool off, and lay waiting for you to scoop it up from the bottom.
Work quickly because the rum will solidify in the saucepan. If this does happen, you can melt it again on low heat, being sure to stir constantly, and continue the spherification process.
- Once you’re finished, either scoop the balls out with a small slotted spoon or pour through a mesh sieve or cheesecloth to collect the spheres from the oil. Drop them in cold water for a few seconds to wash the oil off and you’re ready to go.

TIP: if you’re making a lot of this and don’t want to go to the hassle of making little balls, you can just let the mixture cool and solidify in the sauce pan, then put it through a food processor. It comes out looking like little shards of glass, which is also really cool-looking.

You can store it in an airtight container, in the fridge, with a few tablespoons of water at the bottom. You can store it for several weeks, and when you make them for X-Mas, you will have plenty left for your New Year drink. It will impress your guests!

Use:
- for cocktails that call for rum - 1:1.5 ratio (if a cocktail calls for 1 oz of rum, try 1,5 oz of rum pearls)
- as a drink itself – it’s a wonderful treat all by itself, served with a spoon.
- over ice cream and bananas
and
- if you serve eggnog to drinking and non-drinking guests just make a batch of non-alcohol eggnog, and spoon in some of the Rum Pearls for your drinking guests.
People will still be talking about it next year!

Alcohol boils off at 172 degrees. I promise you that if you are heating it with your agar-agar powder to a boil, there is no alcohol left in the rum. You can serve it to your "non-drinking" guests without fear of them being sullied by the vile spirit.

20yrsinBranson

[elnina]

^^^ It does, but this is minimized by removing it from heat as soon as it starts to boil. You could add the brown sugar and agar powder at the same time and once it comes to a boil remove it from heat immediately. That’s part of the reason the resulting spheres are at a ratio of 1.5 to 1 compared to the actual rum.

[plaidmom]

Molecular gastronomy comes to City-Data.

Cool.