Hi a huge welcome to Steve's kitchen here
in Sicily I have been absolutely loving
the Cannolo or Cannoli they are so good.
I actually had one the other day in a
little town called Cefalu which
melted in your mouth and when I spoke
with the gentleman there he told me he
doesn't use egg in his cannoli shells
which make them lighter and I think I'm
going to go with that particular recipe
because some of the other ones I've had
have been harder. I prefer the ones that
melt in your mouth and the other thing
about Cannolo is it's about the subtle
differences of the local fortified wines
I'm sure over Cefalu they would have
used a Marsala wine perhaps here in
Ragusa they maybe use another fortified
wine from this region. So without further
ado let me share with you how I make my
delicious Sicilian cannoli. We're going
to start off with a double-zero flour
all-purpose flour
I'm Loosely packing one cup its 125 grams
pop that into the bowl. Now I've got a
tablespoon of softened and slightly
salted butter and this Cannoli mix
is going to make about a dozen cannoli
if you want to make more you can just
double the recipe. A little pinch maybe
about a quarter of a teaspoon of table
salt and half a teaspoon of granulated
sugar. Now just take your fingertips and
rub the butter into the flour. Now I was
told in Cefalu he actually used lard
but here I'm using butter and you can
use really any shortening you like it's
just about keeping the gluten strands a
little bit shorter. Now as I say I'm
using Marsala, we're going for a quarter
of a cup but you could use any fortified
wine you can get your hands on and we're
just going to mix it in and make a
fairly stiff dough. Now you're going to end
up with something not dissimilar in
texture to a pasta dough and we're
going to work it 4-5 minutes until we get a
smooth texture. So our dough is starting
to get smooth but the butter is keeping
it a little bit short.
I'm now just going to take a little bit
of plastic wrap, cover my dough and we're
just going to leave it for 30 minutes to
an hour to allow the moisture to absorb
into the flour. Now whilst our pastry relaxes
there we going to get and make a
beautiful sweet ricotta
filling you could use a whipped cream if
you like but ricotta is really good
I've got about 500 grams just over a
pound I'm just going to use a fork to
break it up a little bit. How sweet you
decide to make the ricotta is up to you
I'm not going to go super sweet but you
can adjust at this time to whatever
sweetness you like. I'm going for about a
quarter of a cup we've got about two
cups of ricotta here in here and by using
a powdered sugar or confectioners sugar
it will make a lot easier we want to get
that sugar nice and evenly distributed
through the ricotta. Now I've just scraped my
bowl down and give it a little try at
this point and see if it's sweet enough
Perfect now I've had this with grated
lemon zest and I really like it plus the
Sicilian lemons are so delicious so I'm
going to put some grated lemon rind in
and this is optional by the way, now
orange peel also works really well with
sweet ricotta and then what I'm going to
do is take a piping bag just stretch it
over a glass and we're going to take our
ricotta pop it into the bag and then I'm
just going to pull up the sides and we'll
leave our ricotta just to chill in the
fridge whilst we prepare the cannoli
shells. Now our dough has had time to bloom
I'm just going to unwrap it and I'm
going to lightly flour my counter take
this lovely dough give it a little pat
down now it doesn't look like a lot of
dough but it will make at least a dozen
cannoli we're going to roll this out. Now
it wants to be quite thin so keep easing
it out let it rest a little bit, your looking
for a dough that isn't too thick almost
like a thick cloth we're going to be
frying our cannoli shells so you want some
cannoli tubes, now these metal ones are
very easy available but quite often they
use just wooden dowels here and I do
like these ones they got a little sort of
join, they'll just squeeze close the
little bit to release the cannoli. You
want a cutter that's not quite as big as
your tube haven't got my cutters with me so
I'm using a lid from a coffee can but it
works just
as well so I'll just come to the edge of
my pastry push that down
give it a little twist and you'll see
we've got these lovely little round discs
Now although we made those round discs
what we want to do now, coming from the
center I just want to roll out and get a
slightly more oval shape. Now take your
Cannolo tube and it should be just
about the right width, we're going to want
some egg whites just the white whisked up
got a little brush here and I want to
brush along the seam edge so this is
where it's going to join and I'm going to
do it on both sides and then we're going
to lift the pastry up over the center
and then roll the two down until you get
a nice seal on the other side like that
I have a pan of sunflower oil or any
vegetable oil should be fine
we're heating that up to 175 degrees Celsius
that's about 350 Fahrenheit not too hot
but pretty hot
Now I'm just going to fry two of these at a
time because I want to show you the
technique I'm using, just going to take
the cannoli and drop it into the fat,
it should sizzle a little bit and then just
let it go, take a second one there now
that is going to bubble up and now all
the moisture is coming out of the
cannoli dough. Now I cook these for about
three minutes until they're golden-brown
you know they're getting close to cooked
because you see the bubbles virtually
stopped and if we lift that up it's going
a nice golden brown ww lift the cannoli out
of there now and just lay it on some
kitchen paper to drip dry. Now one thing
you don't want to fill the shells with
anything before, minutes before they want
to be served to get the best out of them
and they do say they'll last in a
sealed container for several days I
haven't tested that theory out. Before we
start using these I want to dust them
over with some
powered sugar I've got my ricotta out
of the fridge, we want to cut the tip off
but I want quite a decent size big hole
in the end take the cannoli shell and
we're going to pipe it inside now you're
probably going to have to go from both
ends a nice little extra bit of cream
on the end there, turn it round and pipe from the
other side as well fill it nicely up. Now
all over the world you see these with
little chocolate chips I've not seen
that in Sicily but I like it with a
chocolate chip so just come in here you
can either mix it into your cream or when
you've finished just roll it around in
these little delicate chocolate chips
both ends of course but hang on let me
just fill another one because I'll show you how
I like it and they make it here all the
time in Sicily let me just quickly fill
another one up these gorgeous pistachio
nut chippings so we're just going to dip
it in there
look how pretty that looks I just love
them with the pistachios on I'm going to
give this a try and let you know what it
tastes like
ohh
oh yeah so so good I'm get a little hint
of lemon in there as well which is
probably not traditional but I like it
and you can probably hear just how crunchy
the shell is but it's not super hard and on
my tongue its just melting away. Now I'm not
saying this is the definitive way to
make cannoli this is just the way I
discovered with one particular producer
seriously I strongly recommend you don't
use the eggs and don't make the shells too
hard but give it a go and don't worry
if you want to put cinnamon or nutmeg or a
little flavoring in here go for it won't
make any difference to the texture, be
good, share the love if you enjoyed this
video give it a thumbs up and if you
make cannoli at home, send me some
pictures across on social media I love
to see them take care I'll see you next
time