The Story

It doesn’t quite feel like the holidays until you have gingerbread cookies. The spices that are in the cookies, the deep warm brown of the dough, the endless ways to decorate them. It’s all good

For my holiday, I wanted to do a classic gingerbread (my classic gingerbread has a tad more ginger in it than others, since I loveeeee ginger). I also wanted to steer away from the always popular gingerbread house (which is also more frustrating to make than everyone always remembers), and instead I made Santa’s sleigh. The sleigh was a custom design that I drew on paper and then cut out using a knife. I also didn’t have reindeer cookie cutters, so I went along and just used dinosaurs.

It made a nice center piece on the dessert table, and was a great place to display the cake balls that I made!

Ingredients

6 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cups butter (softened)

2 cups dark brown sugar (lightly packed)

1 cup molasses

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 batch of Royal Icing

The Detailed Guide

Make the Dough

In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, ginger, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Mix this with a whisk to thoroughly combine and get those spices evenly distributed throughout the flour.

Then, in a mixing bowl, beat the butter and the brown sugar until fluffy.

I know that most recipes that involve brown sugar, have you tightly packing the brown sugar when you are measuring. I find this annoying, because tightly packed brown sugar is just going to cause us to have clumps of it in our mixing. Instead, by lightly packing the brown sugar, we are keeping air in our sugar, and this will help us cream it with the butter. Since there is more air in the cups (lightly packed versus tightly packed), you’ll see I’ve used “more” sugar than other recipes. 

Pour in molasses and mix until evenly combined. Add in the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla extract. Finally, add in the flour mixture in 3 or 4 batches, scaping down the edges of the bowl after each addition. You should have a nice and fragrant dough that is a not too sticky but not too dry. Before refrigerating, cut the dough into 4 pieces. This will speed up the cooling process and let us not have to worry about rolling out that large mass of dough all at once. Wrap the pieces in parchment paper and put in the fridge until cool (about an hour).

Add flour and all of the spices (not just the allspice) in a bowl.

Thoroughly mix. 

Look at that beautiful color! You don’t want to coat it in flour and ruin that. 

Cut the Cookies!

Once cooled, take one of the pieces of dough out of the fridge and roll between 2 pieces of parchment paper.

The last thing you want to do with cookie dough, is roll it on a floured surface so the outside of our cookies can get unnecessarily dry and then burn in the oven!

Once about 1/4 of an inch thick, you are good as gold to use your cookie cutters to make the shapes you want. This is actually a fairly nice dough to work with, and so if you don’t have the cookie cutter than you want, this is a great dough to use your own designs on. I drew my outline of Santa’s sleigh on a piece of thick paper, and then used a knife to cut around it for my cookies. You don’t get much rise or expansion of the dough, so it’s great for fun, new, and custom shapes!

Pop these in the oven (350°) for 10-15 minutes. Gingerbread cookies in general are a little tricky to make because overcooking/burning the edges is soooooo easy to do. I recommend checking them about 7-8 minutes in, and then about every 2 minutes or so until you are happy with them. Thicker cookies will take more time. More chewy cookies will take less. It’s all about finding your happy place.

Set to cool COMPLETELY on a wired rack before icing these with your Royal Icing. A warm cookie will just cause the icing to melt all over them and you’ll get sad cookies. Decorate with Royal Icing, candies, etc. The ideas are endless, so make all your cookies different!

I couldn’t find “side view of Santa’s sleigh” in a cookie cutter. So I made my own out of paper. 

Try to make all cookies the same thickness. 

Royal icing also holds the cookies together to form 3-D shapes.

On T-Rex, on Stegosaurus! Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!

Shut up and just GIVE ME THE RECIPE!!

Ingredients

6 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cups butter (softened)

2 cups dark brown sugar (lightly packed)

1 cup molasses

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 batch of Royal Icing

Make It

Make the Dough

In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, ginger, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon until evenly distributed.

Then, in a mixing bowl, beat the butter and the brown sugar until fluffy. Pour in the molasses and mix. Add in the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla extract. Finally, add in the flour mixture in 3 or 4 batches, scaping down the edges of the bowl after each addition. Before refrigerating, cut the dough into 4 pieces to speed up the cooling process. Wrap the pieces in parchment paper and put in the fridge until cool (about an hour).

Cut the Cookies!

Once cooled, take one of the pieces of dough out of the fridge and roll between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Once about 1/4 of an inch thick, use your cookie cutters.

Pop these in the oven (350°) for 10-15 minutes. Thicker cookies will take more time. More chewy cookies will take less. It’s all about finding your happy place.

Set to cool COMPLETELY on a wired rack before icing these with your Royal Icing. Decorate with icing, candies, etc. The ideas are endless, so make all your cookies different!

The Story

The Hanukkah season is upon us, and with that means some classic meals. Matzah ball soup. Brisket. And my favourite, rugelach.

I’ll admit that I’m a fan of pastries. Sure, cakes are great. And yes, pies are tasty. But pastries are where I have my most fun and are the desserts that I think are the best. You can pick up pastries and walk around the house with them, dropping little crumbs all over the place that you’ll subsequently have to vacuum up. You never feel bad about having “just one more”. And let me tell you, I always help myself to “just one more” rugelach.

While many recipes for rugelach dough is a cream cheese base, this one is a sour cream base. I find it makes the dough easier to deal with since it won’t be so sticky. Having a dough that is easy to deal with means that you won’t dread having to make them. We’ll also be making this in the food processor because I want to spend more time eating these than making them, and this just speeds up the whole process.

Ingredients

Dough

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup sour cream

Filling

Apricot Jam

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Chopped Nuts (Walnuts, Pecans, whatever you like)

Granulated Sugar

Mini Chocolate Chips

Granulated Course Sugar

Egg White

The Detailed Guide

The Dough

Cut the butter into tablespoon size pieces and put in the food processor with the flour. Pulse about 6 times for 2 to 3 seconds for each pulse. You should still see little pea sized pieces of the butter. That’s good! We’re going to try to keep those.

In a small bowl, combine the egg yolk with the sour cream together. Just use a fork to mix it together. KEEP THE EGG WHITE FOR LATER. Then, add it to the flour mixture and pulse a couple more times until combined. Once again, you’ll still want to see those pieces of butter.

It’s that butter that’s going to give the pastries a nice butter and (more importantly) FLAKEY crust. 

Turn the dough onto a piece of parchment paper. It’s going to be a very dry, clumpy, and loose dough initially. That’s fine. Use the parchment paper to help it stick together and then kneed it a couple of times until it forms to a dough. Flatten it somewhat, wrap in parchment paper, and refrigerate it for several hours or overnight.

Food processor makes for quick and easy dough

Pea sized pieces of butter are the key to a tasty, flakey crust.

Fun fact – Apparently it’s acceptable to spell it both “flaky” and “flakey”!

It’s going to be a loose dough to start

Use the parchment paper to form a dough.

Ready for cooling in the fridge. LOOK AT THE BUTTER PIECES! 

Time to Fill and Cook

It’s best to set up your fillings all in little bowls before you start this process so that everything is easily accessible. While you can edit this as you see fit (and I’ll post variations on the blog later on), the classic rugelach will have:

1. Apricot Jam – You can use apricot preserves if you have that handy, but you won’t want to really utilize the chunks of apricots that are in the preserves.
2. Some type of chopped nut- Depending on my mood, I’ve used pecans, and I’ve used walnuts. While the amount will vary depending on how much you like nuts, I’ve been happy with about a 1/3 of a cup.
3. Cinnamon & Nutmeg – I keep these in the jars, since I find it easier to just sprinkle these on.
4. Granulated Sugar – Since we are just asking for a sprinkle, I just use my fingers to dust.
5. Chocolate Chips – About 1/3 -1/2 of a cup of either mini or finely chopped chips will do. Again, you can vary the amount.
6. Egg white and Brush – Remember that egg white left over from before? Have that out, since we’ll use it to coat the top of the rugelach.
7. Coating Sugar – Any sort of course or large chunk sugar will work for this. Put 1/2 of a cup in a bowl to start and add more as necessary.
8. Remember that these amount will be making 4 rugelach pies (each pie has 12 rugelach to them). Pay attention to each pie while you make them, and adjust amount accordingly.

Now that you’ve got your ingredients out and ready, take your dough out of the fridge and cut into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a circle about 8-10 inches in diameter. For easy rolling, roll between 2 pieces of parchment. Put the rolled out piece in the fridge while you are doing the others.

Once all of your dough is rolled out, take one of the circles out of the fridge because it’s time to make our rugelach pie. Make sure the dough isn’t sticking to the parchment paper. If it is, put it back in the fridge for a little longer. If good, spread 1-2 table spoons of the apricot jam on the dough. This may seem like a little stingy, but adding too much jam will only cause it to run out the sides. Then, sprinkle cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar on top. A medium sprinkle of cinnamon, a light sprinkle of nutmeg, and a medium sprinkle of sugar will do. Then sprinkle your nuts and chocolate chips on top. It will now look like a pizza pie, but with dessert. You’ll want it generally evenly distributed on the pie, but you can play to putting the larger chunks of chocolate or nuts more towards to the outside.

Put this back in the fridge to cool again while you make the other 3 pies. Once all are done, take your first pie out and cut into 12 slices with a pizza cutter. Then, take a slice, and beginning with the outside, roll the piece over itself to form the pastry shape. brush the top with the egg white, and lightly coat the entire outside (a little more on the top) with the course sugar.

Place each rugelach on parchment paper in a baking tray and set in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes (until golden brown on top). Remove from the oven and leave in the pan to cool for a few minutes. Then, remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Eat the entire first batch yourself, and then serve the other 3 batches to your guests.

Cut into 4

8-10 inches is ideal. The dough will be pretty thin.

It’s a pizza pie with chocolate! CHOCOLATE PIZZA!

Fold from the outside in.

Rolled and ready for oven.

This picture is a lie. You will not eat just two. 

Shut up and just GIVE ME THE RECIPE!!

Ingredients

Dough

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup sour cream

Filling

Apricot Jam

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Chopped Nuts (Walnuts, Pecans, whatever you like)

Granulated Sugar

Mini Chocolate Chips

Granulated Course Sugar

Egg White

Make It

The Dough

Put flour and butter (table spoon sized pieces) in the food processor. Pulse about 6 times for 2 to 3 seconds for each pulse. You should still see little pea sized pieces of the butter.

In a small bowl, combine the egg yolk with the sour cream together. KEEP THE EGG WHITE FOR LATER. Then, add it to the flour mixture and pulse a couple more times until combined. Once again, you’ll still want to see those pieces of butter.

Turn the dough onto a piece of parchment paper. It’s going to be a very loose dough initially. Use the parchment paper to help it stick together and then kneed it a couple of times until it forms to a dough. Flatten it somewhat, wrap in parchment paper, and refrigerate it for several hours or overnight.

Fill and Cook

Set up your ingredients you’ll fill the rugelach with so you have them easily accessible: Apricot Jam, Some type of chopped nut, Cinnamon & Nutmeg, Granulated Sugar, Mini Chocolate Chips, Egg white and Brush, and Coating Sugar .

Now that you’ve got your ingredients out and ready, take your dough out of the fridge and cut into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a circle about 8-10 inches in diameter. Put the rolled out piece in the fridge while you are doing the others.

Once all of your dough is rolled out, take one of the circles out of the fridge, Spread 1-2 table spoons of the apricot jam on the dough. Then, sprinkle cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar on top. A medium sprinkle of cinnamon, a light sprinkle of nutmeg, and a medium sprinkle of sugar will do. Then sprinkle your nuts and chocolate chips on top.

Put this back in the fridge to cool again while you make the other 3 pies. Once all are done, take your first pie out and cut into 12 slices with a pizza cutter. Then, take a slice, and beginning with the outside, roll the piece over itself to form the pastry shape. brush the top with the egg white, and lightly coat the entire outside (a little more on the top) with the course sugar.

Place each rugelach on parchment paper in a baking tray and set in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes (until golden brown on top). Remove from the oven and leave in the pan to cool for a few minutes. Then, remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Eat the entire first batch yourself, and then serve the other 3 batches to your guests.

The Story

The inspiration I had for this dessert was a mixture of 2 things.

The first, was my neighbor’s engagement party. I needed to make something. But what? The hosting mother already had ordered a cake (and you never want to try to upstage an engagement cake!), and the sister was making her famous chocolate chip cookies (which just simply can’t be competed with). The theme to the party was also “Merlot”- both the color, and the taste of that delicious red wine. Our families have been close for a long time by proximity (living just across the street), and by our culture. We believe in spending simple times together – the best nights are spent gathered around the kitchen table, snacking on cheeses, and sipping on wine. We talk, we laugh, and we play stupid games and laugh even more. In fact, it was their family that introduced us to making our own wine. If the Italians got anything right, it was wine. And so I knew I wanted to do some sort of Italian dessert. Something classic, but something small. I wanted something pretty, but not a showstopper of a cake. Cannolis fit the bill. They are just the right kind of classy dessert that I was looking for, and they are something you can pick up and eat while chatting with family friends while leaning on the kitchen counter tops.

My second inspiration was the season. It’s been an unusually warm fall season here in New Jersey, and I for one, have been LOVING IT. The cool and crisp (not frigid) Autumn air has led to more than one occasion of just walking around looking at the leaves. The reds. The oranges- the Fall has a solid color palette. It also has great flavors – squashes, corns, butters. It’s the season that you can serve soup for dinner, and everyone is excited about it! But it’s also over-commercialized with pumpkin-spice and apple-spice everythingggg. I’m still surprised I haven’t seen Pumpkin Spice cereal yet in the foodstore (leave a comment if you have because I just HAVE to see that). Anyway.. I wanted something different. Something that says fall without being so noisy about it. And so I went with cinnamon. Most cannoli recipes have a little bit of cinnamon and allspice in them, but I’ve upped the spices to make the flavor of the filling just that more complex. Also pairing it with crushed pistachios gives this a nice rustic color that just brings in the season.

What you end up getting are little pieces of dessert that just taste like home. So what are you waiting for? There is a step by step recipe below, and you (YES YOU), can make these!

Ingredients

Shells

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons salted butter

1 large egg yolk

3/4 cup dry white wine

Filling

3/4 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

2 cups ricotta cheese

1/2 cup heavy cream

Other

Chocolate for dipping

Vegetable Shortening

Pistachios (chopped) for dipping

Oil for frying (vegetable or canola)

Cannoli forms

The Detailed Guide

Let’s Make the Filling – sort of..

The difference between ricotta cheese is huge. Whether we are talking about one brand of cheese versus another, or whether we are talking about whole milks versus skim milk, there is a different consistency in the cheese. Since the ricotta is the main actor in this dessert play, we need to focus a little bit on it. You want a nice and tasty ricotta, and you want that ricotta with as little water in it as possible. This is because it’ll be our filling, and a watery filling is going to make the shells all soggy. So check the ricotta cheese before hand. If it’s a watery one, wrap it in a cheesecloth (or just put it in a fine strainer), throw it in the fridge, and let it drain itself for a wee-bit. We can make the dough for the shells while it’s doing it’s thing. I lucked out and the food store had a sale on a ricotta that happened to be just the right consistency, and so I just started with the dough for the shells.

The Dough!

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and salt. Then give it a nice mix with a whisk. Remember that you want the sugar and the salt to be nice and evenly distributed throughout, so give it a nice mixing. Then, work in the butter with either a fork or your hands (go on, get messy!). The dough should be clumpy and little pea-sized pieces. Finally, pour in the white wine. I used a fork to slowly start to wetten the flour mixture. It’s going to seem a little dry, but keep mixing and it’ll get to it. Once a dough starts to form, take it out of the bowl, put it on a sheet of parchment, and kneed it maybe 3 or 4 times. The kneeding isn’t because of yeast (there isn’t any), but because it’ll help the dough become more…doughy. Now split it in 2, wrap in parchment or wax paper, and toss it in the fridge to cool.

I chose the messy way

Remember, the dough is a little dry.

Back to the Filling

In a medium bowl, mix together the confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, and all-spice. I used the same whisk as before, since I didn’t want to clean more utensils, and I wanted to make sure that the spices were evenly distributed throughout  the mixture. Next, drop in your dried ricotta cheese and stir with the same whisk. It’s going to clump up at first  and get caught all in the whisk, but bang it against the side of the bowl a few times and muscle through. You’ll get a nice smooth mixture.

*The reason I use a whisk so much in this, is that I prefer my cannoli filling to be a little lighter than the usual and typical heavy and dense ones you may find. The constant use of the whisk helps aerate the filling.

In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks. You can use either a whisk attachment on a mixer, or just whisk it by hand (it’s such a small amount of heavy cream, that turning it to stiff peaks by hand takes less time than setting up a mixture- especially with a chilled bowl. Now, fold the whipped cream you just made into the cinnamon ricotta mixture so you’ve got a nice and light filling. Stick it in the refrigerator until you’re about to stuff the cannoli.

See? Nice and dry ricotta!

Stiff peaks to the right. Nice and smooth cinnamon ricotta to the left!

Time to Fry the Shells

First steps first, take a medium pot and place it on the stove with enough oil in it for deep frying. The amount is going to vary for whether you have a deep fryer, you use a normal pot, you use a wok, etc. Heat it to 360º and keep it there. If you are new to deep frying, this may be the most time consuming process. I find a medium heat works best but it varies from stove top to stove top.

Also, take out a dish and place a few paper towels on top of it. This will be where we place the shells once they are done frying so they don’t remain oily.

Now that the dough is chilled, take one of the halves out of the fridge and place between 2 pieces of parchment and begin rolling the dough so it is between an 8th and a 16th of an inch. The ruler I could find first measured length in 10th’s of an inch (weird, right?). I find a good rule of thumb, is when you think it’s thin enough, roll it a little more.

*You may find some recipes that have you flour the surface and the rolling pin. I stay away from that. The flour you added in the dough to begin with should really be enough to not need extra flour. Also, by flouring the surface, you are adding extra flour to just the edges of the dough. This makes for uneven baking/frying/cooking/etc. If your dough is still difficult to work with, chill it a little more. 

Cut the molds out with either a round cookie cutter or just a cup/glass with a good diameter. Some people like bigger cannoli than others. I find 3 1/2 inches in diameter is a nice size, but feel free to make them larger if your cannoli forms are thicker. Take your cut out and form it around your cannoli forms. Generally people use stainless steel cannoli forms. I use homemade wooden ones. With the left over egg white, lightly brush the cannoli closed and flare out the edges a little. This will help the oil cook the whole cannoli, it’ll make it easier to pipe your filling in, and it gives the cannoli that classic look. Place in the oil and fry for about 3 to 4 minutes. They tend to want to float, so keep them turning so that all of the shell spends time under oil. Once done, take them out with tongs and place them on the paper towels to dry. Depending on the size of your pot, you can fry more than one at a time. But remember, the more you’ll add, the cooler your oil temperature will drop to. So do be careful! Usually by the time you fry your next batch, you should be able to remove the shells from their molds. Hold the cannoli form in one hand and the shell in the other- give it a nice smooth tug and twist and it should come off easily. Repeat until all of the dough is used.

Homemade and wooden cannoli rolls. They vary in size and are browned from a lot of use.

Remember – 360 degrees is perfect for frying.

Let these babies dry on paper towels.

Cool enough to remove the forms.

Pay no attention to the shell in the corner that didn’t stay shut…

Decorating!!!!

Melt the chocolate. Since we aren’t making a ganache or anything funky, melting in the microwave is the easiest method. Specifics depend entirely on your microwave, but you can’t really go wrong with 15 seconds and just repeating that until it’s melted. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips, and I used 1 cup of them. I also used 2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening which I mixed in the melted chocolate. This helps the chocolate thin out.

*Yes. I know. Chocolate is measured in weight and not volume, since you can buy large chunks of chocolate or use little tiny chips of chocolate and your volume will vary. I find the store brand semi-sweet chocolate chips are the easiest to work with and taste exceptional. So 1 cup. Also, this is just for melting and dipping. 

Finely chop up about a 1/4 cup of pistachios. Then, take a shell, dip it in chocolate on one side, and dip it in chocolate on the other side. Right afterwards, dip it in the pistachios and one side, and dip it in pistachios on the other side. Set on a wired rack for cooling. Do this for all the pistachios.

Right before serving (or bringing them over to your neighbors house), pipe the filling in the shells. Fill a piping bag with the cinnamon ricotta filling that was in your fridge, and pipe away. I used a large star tipped baking tip for mine. I also fill one side, and then the other. No need to try to fill the whole shell with one side.

Serve ’em. Eat ’em.

That’s all!

I used too much chocolate, but I don’t see that as a problem…

A mixture of big and small pieces works quite well together.

Lookin’ gooooooooood.

I used a star-tip, but you can use whatever.

All your ducks in a row.

You look good enough to eat! Good thing you are ready to eat!

Shut up and just GIVE ME THE RECIPE!!

Ingredients

Shells

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons salted butter

1 large egg yolk

3/4 cup dry white wine

Filling

3/4 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

2 cups ricotta cheese

1/2 cup heavy cream

Other

Chocolate for dipping

Vegetable Shortening

Pistachios (chopped) for dipping

Oil for frying (vegetable or canola)

Cannoli forms

Make It

Dough

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and salt. Work in the butter with either a fork or your hands. Finally, pour in the white wine. It’s going to seem a little dry, but keep mixing and it’ll get to it. Once a dough starts to form, take it out of the bowl, put it on a sheet of parchment, and kneed it maybe 3 or 4 times. Now split it in 2, wrap in parchment or wax paper, and toss it in the fridge to cool.

Filling

In a medium bowl, mix together the confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, and all-spice. Next, drop in your dried ricotta cheese and mix.

In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks.Fold the whipped cream you just made into the cinnamon ricotta mixture so you’ve got a nice and light filling. Stick it in the refrigerator until you’re about to stuff the cannoli.

Fry the Shells

Take a medium pot with enough oil in it for deep frying. Heat it to 360º and keep it there. Take one of the halves of dough out of the fridge, place between 2 pieces of parchment, and begin rolling the dough so it is between an 8th and a 16th of an inch. I find a good rule of thumb, is when you think it’s thin enough, roll it a little more.

Cut the molds out of the dough. I find 3 1/2 inches in diameter is a nice size. Take your cut out and form it around your cannoli forms. With the left over egg white, lightly brush the cannoli closed and flare out the edges a little. Place in the oil and fry for about 3 to 4 minutes. Once done, take them out with tongs and place them on paper towels to dry. When they are a little cooler, remove the cannoli forms from the shells. Repeat until all of the dough is used.

Decorating/Filling

Melt the chocolate. If you need to thin it, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening. Finely chop up about a 1/4 cup of pistachios. Then, take a shell, dip it in chocolate on one side, and dip it in chocolate on the other side. Right afterwards, dip it in the pistachios and one side, and dip it in pistachios on the other side. Set on a wired rack for cooling. Do this for all the pistachios.

Right before serving, pipe the filling in the shells. Fill a piping bag with the cinnamon ricotta filling that was in your fridge, and pipe away. I used a large star tipped baking tip for mine. No need to try to fill the whole shell with one side- fill one side, then complete it with filling the other.

Serve ’em. Eat ’em.