These homemade cannoli are so good! Cannoli are an Italian dessert that we find really charming. They are a kind of fried dough rolls that are filled with a ricotta cheese mixture. That’s the classic way to make these, but you can get creative and fill them with some other things, and then put many other things on top.
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At the end, after filling them, we put finely chopped pistachios or semi-sweet chocolate chips on the tips of each one. You will love them! Now, cannolis can be made in various sizes, but they are usually quite small, like you can see in the pictures.
They are made using metal tubes. The dough is rolled onto these tubes, and the cannolis are fried still wraped around the metal tubes. This is how they keep their shape, so that they can be filled with the cheese cream later.
Cannolis are not a particularly sweet dessert. The dough has a neutral flavor to it, and the filling is only slightly sweet. Then, at the end, to decorate, and also to give them that slightly sweeter touch, which tastes great in combination with the ricotta cheese and the crunchy dough outside, they are sprinkled with a little powdered sugar on top, and they are delicious!
The dough calls for Marsala wine, which is a type of red sweet wine. Now, if you do not have Marsala wine, you can use sweet vermouth or dry jerez instead. The idea is to have some type of liqueur with a similar taste to Marsala wine, which has that sweet touch to it.
If you like this recipe, then you have to check out our tiramisu, you will love it! Probably one of the most famous Italian desserts of all time!
Homemade cannoli
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 1 3/4 C (8 oz ) (227 gr) all purpouse flour
- 1/4 C (1 oz) (30 gr) confectioners sugar
- 1/2 tsp (0.088 oz) (2.5 gr) salt
- 2 tbsp (1 oz) (30 gr) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
- 1/3 C (2.70 fl oz) (80 ml) Marsala wine, sweet vermut, or dry jerez
- 1 egg
- 4 C (1 lt) vegetable oil, fro frying (sunflower or corn)
For the filling and to assemble:
- 17.60 oz (500 gr) ricotta cheese or requesón
- 2/3 C (2.90 oz) (82 gr) confectioners sugar
- 1 tsp (0.17 fl oz) (5 ml) vanilla extract
- 1/3 C (1.98 oz) (56 gr) swmisweet chocolate chips
- 1/3 C (1.40 oz) (40 gr) pistachios, finely chopped
- Confectioners sugar, for decorating
Instructions
For the dough:
- In a large bowl add the flour with the powdered sugar, salt and butter in cubes. Using a fork or your fingertips, integrate the butter with the flour until a sandy dough forms.
- Add the Marsala wine along with the egg and mix with your hands until a smooth dough forms. More wine can be added if necessary to bind the dough together.
- Place the dough on a clean surface and knead for 5 minutes or until it is smooth and has some elasticity. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover it with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let the dough rest in the refrigerator for one hour.
For the filling:
- To remove excess water from the ricotta, place it in a cheese cloth over a strainer with a bowl underneath it to drain the water. Squeeze the ricotta with your hands over the strainer and let stand for 10 minutes. You can also remove the excess water from the ricotta by placing it on blotting paper and exerting a little pressure with your hands.
- Once the ricotta has released the water, place it in a large bowl along with the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and mix with a rubber spatula until the ingredients are perfectly integrated. Place the filling in a piping bag or ziploc bag without a piping tip or with a round and big one. Set aside in the refrigerator until needed.
To form and fry the cannoli:
- When the cannoli dough has rested, place it on a clean, floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin until it is 0.11 inches (3 mm) thick. Cut the dough into circles 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter, using a cookie cutter or a glass of that size. Leftover dough can be put back together to roll out and cut again.
- Separately, place the oil in a medium saucepan and bring to medium heat. Approximately 2 inches (5 cm) high of oil is needed, so the amount will depend on the size of the pot. The oil should be at a temperature of 365º F (180°C) at the time of frying the cannoli, so adjust the heat as needed.
- To form the cannoli you will need special molds, which are stainless steel tubes about 5 – 5.50 inches (13-14 cm) long. Wrap each circle of dough around a cannoli mold and close it by pressing both ends of the dough together with a little cold water. This will seal the cannoli and prevent them from opening during cooking.
- Fry the cannoli in batches of three for 2 minutes. Adding more than three cannoli to the pan will lower the temperature of the oil, so it is easier to fry in small batches. Fry the cannoli until golden brown, then use kitchen tongs to transfer them to a plate lined with paper towels. After a few minutes, remove the cannoli from the pan and allow to cool completely before filling.
To finish:
- Important: the cannoli should be stuffed at the time of serving. To do this, cut off the tip of the piping bag containing the filling, insert it into each cannoli and apply a little pressure so that the cannoli are filled. Then decorate the cannoli at the ends with chocolate chips or chopped pistachios. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar and they are ready.
