Bourbon Ball and Orange Ball Cookies

Orange Ball Cookies are one of the Lacy's Christmas favorites and they instantly became one of mine when I tried them. The simple, no bake recipe is fantastic just as it is but the method is something with which I've had fun experimenting. My Bourbon Ball variation is the perfect holiday gift for friends- especially here in Bourbon country! Ingredients: 4 cups vanilla wafer crumbs 2 cups confectioners' sugar 2 cups finely chopped pecans (I substituted lightly toasted chopped hazelnuts for 1/2 cup) 1 stick of butter melted Orange Ball Variation: 1 small container (approximately 1/2 cup) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed Bourbon Ball Variation: 1/3- 1/2 cup decent quality Bourbon (I used Maker's Mark, my personal favorite). *Note: These have a pretty bold bourbon flavor to them. If you're not a big fan, you might go with another variation. Other Variation Ideas: Dark Rum, Kahlua/Espresso, half bourbon and half orange juice concentrate, Amaretto, etc. You could substitute hazelnuts, almonds, etc. for the pecans or substitute graham crackers or chocolate wafers for the vanilla wafers too. I use the food processor to chop the pecans and the cookies. You want to process the cookies into very fine crumbs- removing any large pieces. The pecans should also be fine per the below picture.

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix to form a dough. It should be moist enough to easily form into a ball. I use a small ice cream scoop to portion the dough so that the balls are all the same size- rolling them into balls in my hands. For the orange balls, roll the balls in additional confectioners' sugar and store in an airtight container in the fridge. For the bourbon balls, skip the sugar and let set up in the fridge for at least 4 hours before moving to the chocolate dipping step:

Melt approximately 1 1/2 cup of high quality chocolate in a double boiler (glass bowl siting atop a pan of simmering water) until smooth. I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips in this case. Coat the bourbon balls one at a time in the chocolate. I found that dropping it in and using a teaspoon to roll it around worked well. I then scooped it up and set it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to cool (I put them in the fridge for an hour when finished). You'd probably want to store these in the fridge until serving as well.

(You'll see that I set them on a wire rack to cool/set. DO NOT DO THIS. Set directly on parchment to avoid losing chunks of chocolate from the bottom after the chocolate has hardened. =) I had to redip them after the fact to recoat the bottoms.)

I put the balls into little plastic treat bags tied with ribbon to give to friends/family. I bought a Holiday stamp and some red ink at Michael's and made little labels for each. Any variation of these scrumptious little morsels would be great to enjoy at home any time of year or as a tasty gift!