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!