What are Cannoli (or Cannolo in Italian)?
“Holy” Cannoli are a Sicilian dessert. Sicilian pastry chefs form and fry dough rounds, they then fill them with a ricotta filling or sometimes, a cream filling. They are absolutely delicious, not too sweet and are just fun to eat treats. I grew up in an Italian-American community outside of Boston, Massachusetts, read more about it here. There were a few Italian pastry shops that my family and I would go to to buy these delicious treats. One such famous shop is Mike’s Pastry in the North End of Boston, the old Italian neighborhood. Their shop is a must-do whenever in Boston.
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What’s a Holy Cannoli?
Well, that’s just an expression! There are many odd expressions used exclusively in Italian-American communities. “Holy Cannoli!” is a popular response during a conversation when somebody tells you something surprising or unbelievable. This expression, like many others, are inside jokes among Italian-Americans.
how do you make a cannoli?
To make cannoli – you will need pastry tubes – round metal forms, click here to see some options. Here are basic process photos for making cannoli:
- Make the dough for the shells.
- Roll, slice and shape the dough on the pastry tubes.
- Fry the shaped shells in the air fryer until golden.
- Remove the shells and allow to cool.
- Prepare the filling
- Pipe the filling into the shells.
- And then, Mangia!! (Eat and enjoy!)
What kind of cannoli Filling is Best?
What’s the best? Well you get to decide, you’re the chef! There are two basic fillings, I explain them below.
RICOTTA FILLING RECIPE
Traditionally, cannoli are filled with a sweetened ricotta cream in Sicily. Ricotta filling for cannoli consists of ricotta cheese, a sweetener, an extract, and mix-ins like dried orange peel (optional/as desired).
PASTRY CREAM FILLING
In the Italian-American neighborhood where I grew up, the local bakery filled them with pastry cream. Pastry cream is made from eggs, a thickener, sugar, cream (or milk) and vanilla extract. Since I am dairy-free, I opted to fill these cannoli with both vanilla and chocolate pastry cream made with almond milk instead of cream/milk. The recipe is the same, just substitute your non-dairy milk of choice. See the recipe below.
Air Fryer Cannoli
Ingredients
- 125 g Red Wine (dry or semi-sweet) A dry white wine can be used too, if you do not want pink-tinted cannoli shells.
- 60 g Butter, melted
- 30 g Sugar
- ¼ tsp Sea Salt
- 325 g AP Flour
Vanilla Pastry Cream Cannoli Filling
- 950 ml Full Fat Milk (or any non-dairy milk, like almond milk)
- 225 g Sugar
- ¼ tsp Sea Salt
- 4 ea Eggs, Large
- 90 g Corn Starch
- 2 T Butter, Unsalted
- 1 T Vanilla
- 56 g Chocolate bits (optional) use only for chocolate filling
Instructions
Cannoli Shells
- SCALE all ingredients (measure ingredients in separate bowls using a kitchen scale).
- MIX all ingredients
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, whisk together the wine, butter, sugar and salt until well blended.
- Switch to the dough hook. Add the flour and mix until a smooth dough is achieved, about 5-6 minutes.
- Remove dough from the mixing bowl and knead into a smooth ball.
REST
- Cover the dough with a damp towel and rest at room temperature for at least 3 hours, or in the refrigerator overnight. Hint: The longer the dough rests, the more flavorful the shells.
- MAKEUP of Cannoli Shells
- Take one quarter of the rested dough and roll into a rectangle, about 1/4"/6mm thick.
- For mini-cannoli (as pictured), use a 3" biscuit cutter to cut even rounds.
- Roll the cut cannoli dough into ovals. Wet one edge on each of the ovals. Place the cannoli tubes on top of the ovals, see image.
- Fold the ovals around the tubes, using the wet edge on top, seal together.
- Place cannoli dough wrapped around the metal tube into an air fryer.
- Fry until the cannoli shells are golden and crisp. Remove them from the air fryer to cool.
- Remove the shells from the tubes being careful not to crush or break them. Set aside to completely cool before filling. Shells can be made ahead and stored at room temperature in an air tight container for up to three days.
Cannoli Filling
- In a heavy bottom sauce pan, whisk together the milk, sugar and salt, set aside.
- Whisk together the eggs and corn starch until smooth, set aside.
- Place sauce pan with milk mixture over medium heat, whisk gently until the sugar and salt are dissolved and milk it steaming (but not boiling). Remove from heat.
- Using a ladle, ladle one scoop at a time of the heated milk into the egg mixture and gently whisk until it is mixed. Repeat with a second ladle of milk, etc., until the milk is thoroughly mixed into the egg mixture.HINT: Slowly mix the hot milk into the egg mixture so the egg does not cook into scrambled eggs!
- Return egg mixture to the saucepan. Heat over medium heat mixing gently with a spatula until the mixture thickens. Definitely get your pastry cream thick otherwise it will run out of your finished cannoli. If it is not thickening enough, add a little extra corn starch mixed with a small amount of cold milk, continue to cook until it is very thick.HINT: Mixture is done when it thickly coats the back of a spoon.
- Remove from heat and stir in 2 T of butter and the vanilla extract. Mix until butter is melted.
- Optional: To make Chocolate Pastry Cream. Remove half the vanilla pastry cream and put it into a bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap (so a crust does not form) and place in the refrigerator to completely cool.
- To the remainder of the still warm pastry cream, add the chocolate bits. Mix until the chocolate is melted and blended into the cream. Cover tightly with plastic wrap (so a crust does not form) and place in the refrigerator to completely cool.
Fill the Cannoli Shells
- Remove the pastry cream from the refrigerator and whisk until smooth.
- Fill a pastry bag with vanilla cream and a second bag with chocolate cream.
- Cut a 1/2" hole at the tip of the bag (or fit the bag with a plain 1/2" decorating tip if you have it).
- Working with one shell at a time, place the tip inside the shell and fill half from one end, turn around, fill from the other end.HINT: Do not fill the cannoli until the day you plan to serve them, otherwise the shells will become soft. Store unused pastry cream and the filled cannoli in the refrigerator.
