Delicate, crisp pastry shells filled with sweetened ricotta, dark chocolate, pistachios and candied orange.
Few Italian desserts feel quite as evocative as Sicilian cannoli. With their crisp, golden pastry shells and creamy ricotta filling, these traditional Italian pastries bring together some of Sicily's most distinctive flavours: sweet ricotta, citrus, chocolate and pistachios.
Cannoli are traditionally made by wrapping thin pastry around metal tubes before deep-frying until crisp and blistered. The cooled shells are then filled with sweetened ricotta and finished with little touches of candied orange, chopped pistachios and chocolate. They are best filled just before serving, when the contrast between the delicate crunchy shell and cool, creamy filling is at its most delicious.
This is a lovely recipe to make when you want to bring a little taste of Sicily to the table, perhaps alongside a strong coffee after a long lunch, or as part of an Italian-inspired dessert spread.
Makes
10–12 cannoli
Ingredients
For the cannoli shells
250g plain flour
25g caster sugar
15g unsalted butter, softened
10g unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 small pinch of salt
1 egg, beaten
50ml Marsala wine
1 tsp white wine vinegar
Vegetable or sunflower oil, for deep-frying
For the ricotta filling
500g ricotta, preferably sheep's-milk ricotta
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of ½ orange
50g dark chocolate chips or finely chopped dark chocolate
To decorate
40g shelled pistachios, finely chopped
40g candied orange peel, finely chopped
Icing sugar, for dusting
Method
Prepare the ricotta
For the creamiest filling, drain the ricotta before you begin. Place it in a fine sieve over a bowl, cover and leave it in the refrigerator for several hours, or ideally overnight. This removes excess liquid and gives you a thicker filling that is much easier to pipe into the cannoli shells. Traditional Sicilian recipes commonly use well-drained ricotta for this reason.
Make the pastry
Place the flour, caster sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon and salt into a large bowl and mix together. Add the softened butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Beat the egg and add it to the mixture along with the Marsala and white wine vinegar. Bring everything together with your hands until you have a firm dough. Turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead for around 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it to rest in the refrigerator for 1–2 hours. Resting the dough makes it easier to roll very thinly without it springing back.
Roll and shape the shells
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it into 10–12 small pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough out as thinly as possible — approximately 1–2mm thick.
Cut each piece into a roughly 10cm circle or oval. Wrap the pastry around a metal cannoli tube, overlapping the edges slightly. Brush the overlapping edge with a little beaten egg white or water and press gently to seal.
Continue until all of the pastry has been shaped.
Fry the cannoli
Heat the oil in a deep, heavy saucepan to approximately 175–180°C. Carefully lower a few cannoli shells into the hot oil at a time, taking care not to overcrowd the pan.
Fry for approximately 1–2 minutes, turning gently if necessary, until the pastry is crisp, golden and lightly blistered.
Carefully remove the shells with a slotted spoon or tongs and place them onto kitchen paper to drain. Allow them to cool completely before gently sliding the metal tubes out.
Continue until all the shells have been cooked.
Make the ricotta filling
Pass the well-drained ricotta through a fine sieve into a clean bowl. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and orange zest and gently mix until smooth and creamy.
Fold through the dark chocolate. Keep the filling chilled until you are ready to fill the cannoli.
Fill the cannoli
Transfer the ricotta mixture into a piping bag. Once the shells have cooled completely, pipe the filling into both ends of each cannoli until they are nicely filled.
Dip each end into the chopped pistachios and candied orange peel, allowing a little of each to cling to the ricotta.
Finish with a light dusting of icing sugar and serve as soon as possible.
A Mia Dolce Vita Touch
Cannoli are one of those desserts that feel made for lingering around the table. Rather than treating them as an everyday sweet, make them part of an occasion. A long Sunday lunch, an afternoon coffee with friends or an Italian-inspired dinner where everyone stays a little longer than planned.
For the most beautiful presentation, arrange the cannoli on a simple serving plate and scatter a few extra chopped pistachios and pieces of candied orange around them. Serve alongside strong coffee or espresso and let everyone help themselves.
The shells can be made ahead and kept in an airtight container once completely cool, while the ricotta filling can be prepared separately and refrigerated. Fill the cannoli just before serving so the shells remain beautifully crisp.
A little Sicilian sunshine, one crisp shell at a time.