Basically it's a ball of vanilla ice cream with coconut on the outside. That's the snowball part. The flame is this innocent looking sugar cube on the top... doused in alcohol (we use lemon extract... it has an 85% alcohol content which makes the flame burn longer than say, vanilla extract).
Here are the secret ingredients that make this simple dessert so fun.
My mom used to make these with us when we were kids. I always thought she came up with it. Then one day some of my aunts/cousins got into a conversation on facebook about flaming snowballs and I realized that they had all done this too! Kind of fun, I had never done this with my boy before but added it to his advent calendar for something fun to do this month.
We headed over to Trent's sister's house to share our fun snowballs with their kids. Because honestly... the three of us have a rip roaring good time on our own, but some things are just way more fun with other people.
We had a whole lot of snowballs, and a lot of curious kids. I realize that this can be sort of dangerous, so we lined the snowballs down the table and lit them all at once. The kids weren't allowed to touch them until the flame burned out. They only last a few minutes, but the flame gets pretty high when they are burning. It's fun to watch! We turned off the lights and watched the flames flicker until they went out.
The sugar cube caramelizes under the flame and from what I remember they taste pretty good too. The coconut gets a little toasty around the sugar cube, but that's just even better in my book. The whole thing is edible, kind of different, and just a fun experience.
It was really fun and a tradition that I plan on doing each winter. It's funny how different smells can trigger memories. Smelling the lemony burning sugar cubes brought back so many memories of doing this with my siblings when I was a kid. I think my grandma would be proud that the flaming snowball tradition lives on!!!
