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How to make Cannoli like a Sicilian.
Since we moved to the USA, I searched for sheep milk ricotta because I challenged myself to make Sicilian Cannoli. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Update 2021: I found sheep milk ricotta but then I lost my contact (he changed work), BUT I might have found a new one. Stay tuned as I will update this post with new Infos.
Update 2022: I moved to Seattle and not a single sheep has been asked her milk to make ricotta.
Ps: One of my dream is to have sheep and chickens, not for eating them, but to make sheep’s milk ricotta and to use eggs for my baking project. They would be so spoiled! <3
Food Culture Note: in Italy, we make Ricotta in a different way from how it is made in the USA. We use whey leftovers from making cheese, while in Usa cheesemongers use vinegar or acid citric.
Few tips about buying a Cannoli from a Bakery Shop:
- Cannoli are never ready to take away. They always need to be filled. It’s a very simple pastry, rich, but simple. The critical point in this kind of pastry is the quality of ingredients. The rule is: less is more. When you have high-quality ingredients you don’t need to cover a Cannolo in pistachios o chocolate or whatever. You just need to enjoy the crunchy shell and the velvet ricotta.
- There is no orange in the Cannoli cream, no orange zest, or candied orange. I talk about the Old School pastry, so if you want to make an Orange C. be my guest!
- Many shops and bakeries now sell DIY Cannoli BOX. They contains the shells and pastry bags filled with Cannoli Cream, so you only have to fill them. I love this option. Because it assures you the freshness. Don’t miss BISNONNA BAKESHOP, a tiny bakery, fantastic women-owned, and the woman’s name is Nicole. Not only she makes the best Cannoli but she also makes different flavors of Cannoli! And they are all amazing. I tasted them (and you know I am a pain in the ass hard judge when talking about Italian food…well…they passed the test cum laude!).
Do you know some seasonal flavoris: Lemoncello Cannoli, Cinnamon Honey Latte , Thai Coffee , and many more!
I strongly recommend to get a kitchen scale (you can find it here for 8.99$)
Authentic Sicilian Cannoli
Cannoli is a very old Sicilian swets that combines the crunchiness of the cannoli shell with the creaminess of ricotta.
- kitchen scale
- steel tubes
- pasta rolling machine or rolling pin
- frying pot
- 2 bowls
- Food Processor (facultative)
- siever to drain ricotta
- spider skimmer or similar
- kitchen paper
- kitchen tongs
Cannoli Shells 25 pz
- 400 g All-Purpose flour (if you have 00 flour is even better) (plus for dusting the counter and pasta machine)
- 40 g Sugar
- 40 g Lard (Manteca) (Leaf Lard is the best for baking/pastry)
- 40 g Marsala wine or any other sweet wine or rum
- 5 g cocoa powder (unsweetened)
- 60 ml water
- 1 tbsp vinegar (I like Apple Cider Vinegar but any vinegar will work (except Balsamic Vinegar))
- 1 tiny pinch of vanilla powder or vanilla paste
- 1 pinch salt
- butter just enough to grease the tubes
- egg whites just enough to close the dough over the tubes
- 1 bottle frying oil (I use sunflower or peanuts oil)
Cannoli Cream Filling
- 500 g Sheep Milk Ricotta – drained – (you can sub with half and half sheep and cow ricotta or all cow's milk ricotta. Read the notes about this.)
- 160 g Sugar (the original recipe from Palermo calls for an amount of sugar the half of the weight of the ricotta, I tried it but was too sweet for me, so I choose 1/3 of the weight). )
- 1 pinch Salt
- 100 g dark chocolate chunks roughly chopped or mini chocolate chips
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
Decoration
- 25 candied cherries
- 25 scorzette/organge candied strips
- powder sugar (to sprinkle)
- 1 cup crushed pistachios (facultative)
Make the Cannoli filling:
Always start with draining ricotta. If it is very soft and fresh it may take a couple of days to drain all the extra whey. To get the perfect texture, put the ricotta in the fridge two nights before the day you want to make Cannolis.
The first night, ricotta needs to drain liquid. To do it: place ricotta in a colander over a bowl and cover. Note: I like the grainy texture of ricotta, but if you want a silkier and smoother texture strain the ricotta a couple of times.
I don't recommend using food processor or a beater to do it otherwise ricotta will get super watery.
Take out, mix ricotta with the sugar vanilla, cinnamon, salt, put in air tight container, and place a second night in the fridge. The day after mix in the chocolate chips and fill your cannoli!
Make Cannoli Shells
Combine flour, sugar, lard, cocoa, marsala, salt, vinegar, water and vanilla in a bowl or in a food processor. Pulse or work until it gets together.
Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead until smooth (3- 4 minutes).
Wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest of at least 1 hour (I waited 2 hours)
Lightly coat the dough with flour and roll it through a pasta machine. Start with the thickest. Of course, if you don’t have the pasta machine, you can use a rolling pin, remember to flour the surface. It has to be thin but not too much otherwise it will break easily.
I did three passages on the pasta machine, largest, medium, and the second to last setting.
In Palermo, the traditional cannolo shell shape is 5 inch square.
If you prefer. you can make a 5-inch circle and then gently pull into an oval shape with the rolling pin.It also mostly depends on the size of your steel tubes.
ATTENTION: Wrap one oval/square of dough LOOSELY (be careful, if too tight if it'll be hard to take out the steel tubes and you’ll break them – real story) around the form.
Brush one end of the square with egg white or water then pull the dry and over the top and press down to seal.
In a pot, heat vegetable oil to 350 degrees F.
Don’t go over this temperature, or it'll burn the shells.
Line a large plate with kitchen paper .
Using tongs, carefully lower the dough into the oil and fry until golden brown, turning them as they fry, 2-3 minutes. Remove the shells with tongs and transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper, to cool.
When the shells are cool enough to touch, remove the tubes and repeat with the remaining dough in batches.
Shells can be stored in an airtight container for a few weeks.
FIll the Cannoli
Every shell had a different weight; some were 26 gr., others 31 gr.
I used around 50g of filling for each cannoli.
You should fill cannolis maximum 15 minutes before eating; otherwise, you’ll get a mushy cannolo, because the shell will absorb all the liquid from the ricotta.
Some pastry shops brush the inside of shells with melted dark chocolate melted so it gets “waterproof” but I don’t like. I don't like it but it's something they do.
Decorate
Before serving, decorate with candied orange on top and half candied cherry on the two sides of cannolo. If you like, cover one side with crushed pistachio.
Dust with powdered sugar.
Now, take a Cannolo. Close your eyes. Sink your teeth, give a bite, hear the snap, the crunchiness, taste the velvet ricotta. Welcome to Sicily.
Are you craving more Sicilian dishes? What about we start with an easy salad like Vastasa Salad (that you can make ahead of time and keeps beautifully in the fridge), and then we eat Arancini (my mamma’s Recipe)?
OMG, please tell me you had zero control when all was finished and done and ate at least 50% of them (because if you didn’t, who ARE you??). Look amazing. And hooray for sheep ricotta–finally! See, sometimes dreams do come true in America!
ahaahah yes!!!! The true American Dream! The problem was to stop Matteo from eating them all!!! He is like a labrador, if you are not fast enough, you loose.