Cannoli

I’ve always loved Italian food.  Pasta, cream sauces, cheese…what’s not to love?  My real respect for the Italian people came about when I discovered the cannoli…fried pastry, filled with a cheese/sugar filling, dipped in mini chocolate chips, and topped with powdered sugar…is that even legal?  Apparently it is, but unless you have an Italian bakery near you, you’ll have to make your own.

I’ve now made cannoli twice, so I’m hardly an expert, but I’ll show you what I’ve come up with.  You will need some special equipment: large, round cookie cutter and cannoli molds.  These are the ones I have.  Yes, I buy stuff from a restaurant supply store, and yes my husband would suggest some sort of treatment program…but he really likes the food.  I have the smaller size, but this set gives you four of each so you can make two different sized cannoli.  I would also suggest getting more than four molds.  You have to wait for the molds to cool before removing the shells…so the more molds, the better (my birthday is approaching…hint hint).  You will need a round cookie cutter that is about an inch shorter than the length of your cannoli tube.  You can substitute a round Tupperware container or a large cup.  The cannoli dough needs a solid inch overlap so they don’t break open while being fried (guess what I did wrong with the first batch…see pictures below).

Equipment
large pot (at least 6” tall to have enough room for the oil and several inches at the top to prevent the oil from splattering out and causing a fire…been there, done that)
candy or oil thermometer that can be clipped to the side of the pot
cannoli molds
large, round cookie cutter
pasta maker (if you have it)
rolling pin
pastry brush
tongs or other device for removing the cannolis from the oil

Ingredients
4 c flour
1 tbsp sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
¾ - 1 ½ c red wine
3 tbsp butter at room temp

1 egg beaten
~4 quarts of vegetable or canola oil…enough to get 3-4” of oil in your pot

3 lbs ricotta cheese (I love any recipe that specifies the amount of cheese in pounds not ounces.)
1 ¾ c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
one bag mini chocolate chips
additional powdered sugar for sprinkling

Mix the flour, sugar, and ½ tsp cinnamon together.   If using an electric mixer with the dough hook, add ¾ c red wine to the center of the flour.  If kneading by hand, make a well of the four, and add the wine to the center.  Slowly incorporate the wine with the flour mixture.  Add the butter one tablespoon at a time.  If it is dry, add more wine.  Once it is able to form a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it for 15 minutes.  The dough should be stiff and dry, but still able to form a ball.  It will be a slight purplish color from the wine.

Beat the ricotta cheese for 5 minutes, then slowly add the sugar, and beat for another minute.  Add the vanilla, cinnamon, and ¼ c mini chocolate chips.  Chill the mixture until ready to assemble the cannoli.

Put the oil in the pot, clip on the thermometer, and set it on the stove to medium high heat.  The oil needs to get to 390⁰^F.  Once it is near 390⁰^F, turn the heat down to medium low.  You will need to constantly adjust the temp between medium low and medium because the oil will cool as you cook the cannoli.  Try to keep it at 390⁰^F as best you can.

 
Once the dough has been chilled, you can begin rolling it out.  Here is the setup I have: pasta roller, extra flour with cookie cutter, egg with pastry brush, and rolling pin.

The first time I made cannoli, I divided the dough into 24 parts, and rolled each one out…this took…awhile.  This time I rolled out a good chunk, then used my pasta roller to complete the rolling.  The dough needs to be very thin (less than 1/16^th of an inch) in order to bubble and get layers of pastry…drool.  I put the pasta roller on the 1^st setting and then moved the dial past 1 to make the rollers as far apart as possible.  Roll the pasta through once, fold it over itself, roll by hand, and roll through the pasta roller again.

Then roll it on setting 1, then setting 2.  Use the cookie cutter to cut out the dough and repeat with the remaining dough. 

Roll each circle of dough around the cannoli form sealing it with a brush of egg.  

If the cannoli don't stay around the mold while cooking, they will look like this...

...and those do not hold the filling well at all.

Fry two cannoli at a time for about a minute or until brown.  Make sure that they don’t stick together or to the bottom of the pot. Remove them from the oil and set on a paper towel covered plate (4+ sheets of paper towel).  Allow them to cool for a few minutes before removing the hot molds.  Repeat with remaining cut out dough.  If any of the rounds break, you can use them as chips to dip into the left over filling…YUM!

Once all of the cannolis have been cooked in the oil, turn off the heat.  Fill a gallon zip lock bag or pastry bag with the filling, cut off the end, and fill the cannoli shells with the filling. 

You can also use a spoon or knife, but a bag is much easier.  Dip each end of the filled cannoli into a dish with the mini chocolate chips.  Sprinkle the finished cannolis with powdered sugar, and enjoy!  This recipe makes about 25 cannoli.  Only fill the shells if you are going to eat them that day.  The shells and filling should be stored separately if eating another day.

 

After all of that fried pastry filled with cheese, you may want to check out some of my running posts here and here.