"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli', a famous quote from the legendary movie The Godfather and one of the reasons why this Sicilian pastry has become so popular. A cannoli is a cookie roll with a filling of sweetened ricotta. Making your own is quite difficult, so it is better to order it on an Italian terrace. Still make it yourself? Here you will find the recipe.
Ingredients for cannoli
For 4 people
- Preparation time:1 hour 30 minutes + 2 hours cooling time and 30 minutes oven time
- 60 g butter
- 250 g flour + some extra
- 2 tbsp ground almonds
- 30 g sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
- 2 eggs
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 50 ml marsala
- 1 protein
- oil for frying
- 1 lemon, to flavor the oil
- 100 g dark chocolate
- 60 grams of unsalted pistachios
- 80 g peeled almonds or hazelnuts
For the cream-filling:
- 200 g ricotta
- 200 g mascarpone
- 100 g sugar
- 1 tbsp orange blossom water
- 3 tbsp grated lemon zest
- 100 ml whipped cream
- powdered sugar for dusting
- extra needed:6-12 cannoli molds (special stainless steel tubes with a diameter of 2 cm)
How to make the cannoli
- Melt the butter in a saucepan. In a bowl, mix the flour with the almond flour, sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt. Add the butter and lemon zest and mix into a dough. Knead well and add the marsala little by little. Knead to a smooth and elastic dough. Shape it into a ball and let it rest in the fridge wrapped in cling film for 2 hours.
- Divide the dough into 10 pieces, roll them into balls and roll them out on a floured work surface with a rolling pin into circles of 12 cm in diameter.
- Beat the egg white until stiff. Roll 1 piece of dough around a greased cannoli tube; glue the overlapping ends together with some egg white. Press firmly so that they do not come off when frying.
- Heat the frying oil to 170°C. Fry the whole lemon in it for 1 minute to release the aroma. Remove the lemon from the oil with a slotted spoon. Now deep-fry the cannoli tube by tube for 3-4 minutes until golden brown. Let them drain and cool on kitchen paper. Then carefully pull the tubes out of the crispy biscuit rolls. Continue until all the dough is used up.
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Finely chop the pistachios and almonds. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan until lightly browned, until the aroma is released. Let cool. Brush the edge of the cookie rolls thinly with chocolate and dip them directly into the chopped pistachio or almond. Let it dry well.
- In a bowl, stir the ricotta with the mascarpone and sugar. Stir in the orange blossom water and lemon zest. In another bowl, whip the cream until stiff and fold the cream into the ricotta mixture. Spoon the cream into a piping bag with a large smooth nozzle or disposable piping bag. Fill the biscuit rolls with the ricotta cream and dust with some powdered sugar. Serve immediately.
Enjoy your meal!
Also looking for an appetizer? Try this Italian vegetable soup.
Recipe and image:Beeldigbeeld/Stockfood
