Sweet Ricotta Stuffed Cannoli Shells
Serves 20
Prep Time 20 mins
Cooking 40 mins
Level high
Ingredients
- 250g plain flour 00
- 18g caster sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 45g unsalted butter diced into small pieces
- 1/3 cup marsala wine
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg white
- 1 litre vegetable oil for frying
- Icing sugar for dusting
- 1 kg Hanini Irkotta
- 180g icing sugar
- 125g whole nuts, chopped in tiny pieces
- Chopped unsalted pistachios
- Melted chocolate
In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter and pulse again until there aren’t clumps of butter. Add the marsala wine and whole egg and pulse to mix well (if needed add more marsala wine) to bring the dough together in a soft dough. Shape into a round, cover, and let rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour. Heat the oil in a large deep pot for a temperature of 180c. In the meantime, working with half of the dough at a time, and keeping the other half covered. Roll the dough very thinly onto a well flowered surface. Using a 4 to 4 1/2 inches cookie cutter, cut dough into rounds. Spray lightly the cannoli forms with cooking spray, then wrap these dough rounds around each cannoli form, while brushing about 3/4 inches of one end lightly with the egg white. Press edge of the dough to the opposite side of the dough brushed with the egg white. Carefully immerse 3 or 4 cannoli at a time in the heated oil and fry until golden brown and crisp. This takes about 1 to 2 minutes. ( always check the temperature so that the oil will not burn the cannoli ) Remove from the oil using a metal tong to grasp the cannoli shells ( let oil from inside the forms drain back into the pot ) Transfer onto paper towels to drain. Fold layers of paper towels and wrap a paper towel around the shell to carefully slide from the form. Let the forms to cool and repeat process with the remaining dough circles. At this point one could store these cannoli shells in a sealed box covered with baking paper, then place the cannoli and cover again with baking paper.
For the filling, in a bowl, mix Hanini ricotta, icing sugar and whole nuts. Brush some melted chocolate in the inside of the cannoli shells. Dip both sides of the cannoli shells in the melted chocolate and then in the chopped pistachios and let these to dry. Spoon the filling in a piping bag and cut the tip of the piping bag. ( about 3/4 inches down from the tip ) Fill the cannoli shells by piping the filling from both sides of the cannoli shells. Place the filled cannoli on a plate and sift the icing sugar over the ready-made cannoli. Recipe by Tonia Grima
