The Best Homemade Cannoli Recipe

Learn how to make delicious Sicilian style homemade cannoli’s that are stuffed up with an amazing sweet sheep’s milk ricotta cheese. Subscribe ► https://bit.ly/2zBklapShow more

Cannoli’s are Sicilian, they were founded in Sicily and everyone knows them as such. There is an incredible history behind it stemming back all the way to 800-1100 ad. During the Arabic rule of the island, the kind had quite a few concubines that would make him amazing foods and desserts. Of those desserts was a cylinder-shaped pastry filled with ricotta, almonds, and honey.

Ingredients for this recipe:

For the Filling:

• 800 g sheep’s milk ricotta or 3 cups
• 300 g sugar or 1 ½ cup
• 250 g mini semi-sweet chocolate chips or ½ cup

For the Shells:

• 250 g 00 flour or 1 ½ cups
• 20 g sugar or 1 ½ tbsp
• salt 3 g
• 1 tsp cocoa powder 2 g
• 25 g lard or 1 tbsp
• 45 g eggs = 1 egg, whisked + 1 more separate
• 50 g marsala wine or ¼ c
• 8 g white wine vinegar or 1 tsp

Serves 25

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Rest Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Procedures:

1. Filling: Add the ricotta cheese to a chinois or a strainer lined with cheesecloth and place it over a bowl and in the refrigerator to drain excess liquid for at least 2 hours or overnight.
2. Remove the ricotta and place it in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and whip on low speed while slowly adding in the sugar.
3. Mix until the cheese is smooth and then fold in the chocolate chips until they are completely mixed in. Refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Shells: Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and cocoa powder into a large bowl.
5. Add in the lard, egg, wine, and vinegar and mix by hand until combined, about 2 minutes.
6. Transfer to a clean surface dusted with flour and knead the dough for 10-15 minutes.
7. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
8. Remove the dough and place on a clean surface dusted with flour and roll it out until it is about a ¼” to 1/3” thick.
9. Using a 1 ½” diameter circle round cutter, cut as many rounds as possible out of the dough as possible, which will make about 20-25.
10. Roll each round out until they are about 5” to 6” in diameter, be sure to dust with flour were needed to avoid any sticking.
11. Whisk 1 egg together in a bowl and set aside.
12. Wrap each rolled out dough round around a metal cannoli cylinder and rub a little whisked egg onto the end of the cannoli dough and wrap the other end over top and gently press to secure. Repeat until all of the cannoli shells are prepped.
13. Fry in oil at 350° for 1 to 2 minutes or until browned. Set aside to drain on paper towels or a rack on a sheet tray.
14. Once they are cool, remove the shells from the metal cannoli cylinders.
15. To Stuff: Take the filling out of the refrigerator and add it to a piping back with no tip.
16. Once the filling is in there use scissors to cut off the end of the piping bag, which is about a ½” up from the tip of the bag.
17. Generously stuff each cannoli shell using the filling in the piping bag. You will have to pipe on one side then turn it to pipe in the other side.
18. Generously sprinkle on powdered sugar and serve!

Chef Notes:

Make-Ahead: While best served and eaten within a few hours of making them, you can make these up to 1 day ahead. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

How to Store: Place covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. They will also freeze well covered for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator for 1 day or until softened.

You can re-roll out the dough to make even more cannoli shells.

Make sure to not form the dough around the cannoli metal molds so that it is hanging over the edges or else it will cook over and will ruin when trying to release them from the metal mold.

You should get fried air pockets in the cannoli shells when frying them.

Some Sicilian variations of the filling include thickened cream with milk and cornstarch, but this is not authentic.

You can also use milk or bittersweet chocolate chips.

Another very classic addition to adding to the filling is citron.

Northern Italy most often uses whole milk ricotta while Southern Italy and Sicily use sheep’s milk ricotta.

When kneading the dough think of pasta, it’s the exact same technique and takes the same amount of time.

There will be some filling leftover which is perfect for dipping graham crackers in!