CANNOLIS, my favorite Italian Pastry!
Growing up Cannoli were one of my favorite Italian pastries if not my absolute favorite. My great aunt Jay use to make them for Christmas along with lots of other cookies, cakes and pies.
What I didn’t know at the time was how she made them. Nor did I know how long they took to make. All I knew was they tasted yummy.
It wasn’t until after I got married and wanted to make some cannoli that I found out you need a Pizzelle maker to make cannoli’s. Basically a cannoli is a pizzelle rolled up with a yummy ricotta cheese filling.
A couple of years ago I bought a pizzelle maker on eBay so I could make them. I was so excited my first time making them. What I didn’t know though at the time was what a long process it is to make them. Making the dough doesn’t take that long, but making the cookies and the filling, that’s time consuming.
I haven’t made cannolis in years. Probably because of how long it takes. Last week I decided I wanted to make cannolis this week for our Church’s Christmas program.
The other day I took my pizzelle maker out. Took a look at it and wondered if it still worked. It looked a bit on the gross side and figured it needed a good cleaning before I used it.
On Friday while my husband and I were out shopping we looked for a new pizzelle maker. We figured I would be better off with a new one rather than taking my chances with the old. We bought a Chefs Choice 835 Pizzelle Pro.
Saturday night my husband and our daughter helped me make the cannolis. I made the mixture and the pizzelles. My husband rolled them up while my daughter made sure they kept their shapes. This took us about two hours. After that my husband made the ricotta cheese filling.
Sunday night before the Christmas program I filled the cannolis with the filling. Yes, it takes two days to make cannolis, the filling and putting it all together. But when you see people smile as they take that first heavenly bite of that delicious cannoli while they sigh in contentment you know it was all worth it.
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Below are the modified recipes I use for Cannoli and Cannoli fillings. I modified these recipes based on instructions that came with my Pizzelle maker https://chefschoice.com/pizzelle-recipes-for-chefschoice-pizzellepro-pizzelle-makers/
Pizzelles
6 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. anise extract
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 ½ cups sugar
Directions
1 Beat the eggs until smooth.
2 Add the oil and vanilla or anise extract.
3 Onto the mixture, sift the flour and baking powder.
4 Add the sugar and blend vigorously all of these dry ingredients into the egg mixture until smooth. The mixture will be sticky and stiff.
5 Test by dropping the mixture from a small teaspoon or demitasse spoon. As needed, add a few tablespoons of water so that the mix drops conveniently as a ribbon in two to three seconds. If the mix is too thin, add a few tablespoons of flour.
6 When removing the pizzelle from griddle immediately roll around a dowel to create the rounded canoli shape.
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Italian Cannoli Filling
1 lb. Ricotta cheese (low moisture)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
Directions
1 Make certain to use the low moisture cheese to ensure that the filling will be sufficiently stiff.
2 Add granulated sugar and confectioner’s sugar and rum extract to the Ricotta and beat with a power mixer at a medium speed for 10 minutes, scraping the bowl periodically to ensure ingredients mix well. Then add chocolate chips or fruit and beat for another 3 minutes.
3 At this stage the Ricotta mixture should be creamy, but stiff. If it appears too stiff to extrude from a pastry bag, slowly add more confectioner’s sugar to the mix and blend for another 2-3 minutes until you have the right consistency. Refrigerate for a few hours before use. (It’s safe to hold for 2-3 days).
4 Load pastry bag with mix and fill each cannoli shell fully. Decorate the ends of the cannoli with ground toasted almonds or pistachios.
5 For added decoration I add mini chocolate chips to the ends of each.