Let's Make: Cannoli - A little slice of Sicily with the classic Italian street food!

Ingredients:

Cannoli Shells:

240 g All-purpose flour

25 g Sugar

2 g Salt

28 g Butter (cold)

120 g Marsala wine

40 g Egg Yolks

1000 g Sunflower Oil

 

Filling:

1800 g Ricotta

240 g Powdered sugar

10 g Vanilla

6 g Salt

Decoration:

100 g Dark Chocolate

75 g Pistachio

Instructions:

To make the filling, add ricotta to a cheese cloth lined strainer suspended above a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, place in the refrigerator and let drain overnight. 

In the bowl of a food processor add your strained ricotta, and sifted powdered sugar, vanilla and salt. Blitz until smooth. Set aside.

To make the cannoli shells, in the bowl of a food processor (now cleaned) add the all-purpose flour, sugar, salt and butter. Process until a bread-crumb like consistency is attained. Add Marsala wine and egg yolks, and pulse until a rough dough is formed.

Turn out on a clean surface and kneed for 2 minutes, form into a ball and flatten into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap or bees wrap and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour to firm up to a workable consistency. 

Using a pasta machine on the beginning on the largest setting. Cut your dough in half and begin working through the pasta machine, using liberal amounts of flour to prevent sticking. Continue passing it through to create a dough that is about 1.5 mm (1/16") thick. 

Cut out 10 cm (4") circles and set to the far side of your well floured work surface. Continue running dough through the pasta machine, rerolling the scraps until you can't cut out anymore.

In a large saucepan over a high heat add your sunflower oil and bring it to 180º C (350º F) for frying your shells. Set aside a cooling wrack over a sheet pan.

Using cannoli molds brush each with some of your oil to help them release (this won't be necessary after the first batch) once fried. Dab a bit of water on the edge of your circles and roll around the molds using the water to create a nice seal to prevent unraveling in the oil. 

In batches of 4 to 6 (depending on pan size) using tongs fry for a minute or two on each side. I've found that it can be very difficult to fry the underside once the bubbles form as it doesn't want to stay flipped over. By actually crowding your pan a bit to help prevent rolling helped significantly.

As they finish frying, remove the hot cannoli molds with the tongs as best you can while not burning yourself, and place on the cooling rack. As the molds cool enough, continue wrapping up the next batches and continue until no circles remain.

Roughly chop your pistachios, set aside.

Add some water to a small saucepan with a bowl to create a double boiler and add your chocolate, bring the water to boil and stir continuously until the chocolate is melted, remove the bowl from the heat.

Dip the ends of your cooled cannoli shells in the melted chocolate, until they are all coated, allow the chocolate to firm up (15 minutes or so) at room temperature.

Grab a piping bag fitted with a large nozzle (star nozzle can be used for a more decorative effect) and fill with your ricotta mixture. Pipe from each end of each cannoli leaving a generous blob on the end of each.

Sprinkle on the chopped pistachios and tuck in!