quick dessert recipes: This Guide Walks You Through Making The Perfect Cannolis Every Time

Cannoli is a pastry made of a tube shaped shell of fried dough, filled with a sweet and creamy filling of ricotta, which is a staple of the Sicilian cuisine. Across Sicily, there are different cannoli filling variations like adding candied orange zest or a citrusy sweetness, and adding chopped pistachios for a strong nutty flavour and texture. You can also experiment and add a whole other flavour to the filling, like chocolate, ginger, or anything else that you might want to try. So follow this quick dessert recipe to make your own cannolis and enjoy an evening with this crisp, creamy dessert.

Ingredients

For the shells:

• 250 gm all-purpose flour (scoop and level to measure)
• 18 gm granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 43 gm unsalted butter, diced into small pieces
• 1/3 cup marsala wine, then more as needed
• 1 large egg
• 1 egg white
• Vegetable oil or shortening, for frying

For the filling:

• 946 ml whole milk ricotta, strained
• 180 gm powdered sugar
• 126 gm mini chocolate chips
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• Chopped unsalted pistachios, optional

Directions:

• First, make the cannoli shells. For this, add the sifted flour to a bowl. Add the sugar and salt and mix well. Then add the butter and pulse in a blender until it's fully incorporated and no lumps remain. Then add the wine, one spoon at a time, and the whole egg. Pulse until well mixed. The dough should be soft. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer to an oiled bowl. Cover and let it rest at room temperature for about half an hour, or up to 2 hours.
• Add oil to a large pot and heat on medium heat.
• Take half the dough and roll it out into a thin sheet on a floured working surface. Cut rounds into the stretched dough with a cookie cutter or small bowl. Wrap the dough rounds on cannoli forms and press together the opposite sides. Brush the sides with the egg white.
• Now use a metal tong to immerse the chell in the hot oil and fry until they are golden brown and crisp. Keep the oil on medium heat. If it's too hot, the shells can burn.
• Then use the metal tongs to remove the shells from the oil. Let the remaining oil drain into the pot. Then transfer to paper towels and drain out the excess oil.
• Wrap a paper towel around the shell and carefully slide it off the form. Repeat process with all the dough rounds.
• Let them cool on a wire rack.
• Make the cannoli filling in the meantime. In a bowl, add the ricotta, powdered sugar, chocolate chips and cinnamon. Mix well and transfer into a piping bag fitted with a large round tip.
• Pipe the filling into the cannoli shells once the shells have cooled.
• Decorated with melted chocolate, chopped nuts, mini chocolate chips or top with powdered sugar. Serve cool.

Notes, tips and tricks:

• The wine can be dry or sweet. If you don't want alcohol, it can be replaced with grape juice or even just water with a spoon of vinegar.
• Use a firm ricotta. If it's runny the filling will be too runny and ooze out the sides. Place a paper towel on the work surface, add more paper on top, then place the ricotta on it and add more paper towels on top. Press gently to get out the extra moisture. Then remove the paper towels and drop it into the bowl. This is because you don't want very watery ricotta.
• If you don't have powdered sugar, you can substitute with granulated sugar. Just make sure you're mixing it enough so that the granulated sugar dissolves completely.
• As per your taste preferences, the cinnamon powder can be laved, doubled or even omitted altogether.
• Other flavours can also be added to the filling, like orange zest, chopped maraschino cherries or vanilla extract.

Make sure you're using unsalted butter for the shells. If you don't have that, you can use salted butter too, but then you need to skip the pinch of salt. But it's better to use unsalted butter and add salt separately, because the salt helps bring out the other flavours strongly.