Cannoli Siciliani
Sicily · dolce · serves 12 · 180 min total · hard
Cannoli (canes) were the carnival dessert of Saracen Sicily — the tube shape may descend from Arab pastries the Normans never wanted to give up.
Ingredients
- 300 g '00' flour
- 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
- 40 g sugar
- 30 g lard
- 80 ml Marsala wine
- 1 white egg white
- 500 g sheep's milk ricotta, drained 24 h
- 150 g icing sugar
- 60 g dark chocolate, chopped fine
- 30 g candied orange peel
- 30 g Bronte pistachios, chopped
- 1 L frying oil
Method
- Mix flour, cocoa, sugar, salt. Rub in lard. Add Marsala and egg white. Knead 10 minutes — the dough should be smooth, firm, elastic. Rest covered 2 hours.
- Roll dough very thin (1 mm). Cut into 10 cm discs. Wrap each around a metal cannolo tube, sealing the overlap with egg white.
- Fry tubes (with the dough on them) at 180°C until deep bronze and bubbled, 90 seconds. Cool, slide off the tubes.
- Whisk drained ricotta with icing sugar until silky. Fold in chocolate, candied orange.
- Fill shells from both ends with a piping bag only when about to serve — never in advance, the shells must shatter.
- Press pistachio onto the cream ends. Dust with icing sugar.