Homemade Cannoli

Last year our New York trip was cut short because of the hurricane. While we got to squeeze in as much as we had planned, one thing that was left unfulfilled for Amado was devouring a Veniero's cannoli. Since then, he's been on a mission to find a good (local) Italian bakery but he's given up after a couple of months so I decided to tackle making some myself.

The shell is pretty easy to make. It calls for the very basic ingredients much like a pasta dough. I did cheat a little by using my pasta maker instead of rolling out the dough by hand. The filling on the other hand took me 3 different tries to get it right. There are tons of the ricotta cheese filling recipes online but I couldn't get over the gritty texture. I also tried folding in some whipped cream in the second batch to lighten the filling but it still wasn't quite right. The ricotta and marscapone combination finally did the trick. Perfect consistency and you can control the sweetness with powdered sugar.

Cannoli Recipe:

4 cups sifted flour

3 tbsp butter

2 egg yolks (save the egg whites)

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup white wine

vegetable oil (for frying)

Combine the sifted flour, sugar, and salt a bowl. Cut in the butter into the dry ingredients. Add the egg yolks. Stir in the wine a tbsp at a time, until a doughlike consistency forms.

Roll the dough into a ball. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour.

Cut the dough into 4 smaller portions for easy handling. Roll dough balls with a rolling pin on a floured  surface until it's thin. Cut in 4" circles. Wrap the circles around the cannoli forms and seal the ends with an egg white wash. Fry in vegetable oil until brown for about 1-2 minutes. Drain and gently remove the forms. Let it cool completely before filling.

Filling:

2 16oz ricotta cheese

2 8oz marscapone cheese

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate 

He finally got his homemade cannoli!

Morning Coffee and Metro Day

It's obvious that Amado and I enjoy making things the hard way like homemade pasta for example. My cousin Anna and her husband Ron gave us a gift card and we quickly went to William Sonoma to pick up a hand-crank coffee mill. Yes, it adds more steps to preparing a cup or two of coffee but there's something about the whole process that I really enjoy. Also, nothing beats the smell of fresh ground coffee. Now we just need a gooseneck water kettle and a ceramic coffee dripper.

Our friend Jaypee brought back some coffee beans from his recent trip to Vanuatu and it was the perfect chance to test out the new mill.

Paired the coffee with a Filipino dessert called sapin-sapin (layered rice cake) which Amado only had a few bites of and I was more than happy to finish. I always grab one whenever we go to our local asian market.

That same weekend, Amado planned a Metro Day with a few of his colleagues. Taking the Metro is a great way to explore Los Angeles. You get to see places that you'd normally just pass through when driving. We started our day with brunch at Bottega Louie and walked on over to the library.

After that we hopped back on to the Expo Line and made our way to California Science Center. It was my first time going there. We didn't have much time to explore the whole place because it was packed with people. USC had a game the same day so the area was filled with families. The only exhibit we had a chance to see was the Endeavor. Of all the displays they had for the exhibit, we were really fascinated with the one that explained how astronauts handled going to the bathroom in space. Won't go into details and ruin it for you all, just go the Science Center and make a day out of it.