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.