The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.I'm a few days late in posting, but time got away from me, so my philosophy is better late than never.
I halved the recipe (found here) for the cannoli shells, just because I didn't want too many of these suckers hanging around my home, if you catch my drift :)
I didn't have the cannoli forms to fry them in the traditional tube shapes, so I decided to go the napoleon route. Unfortunately for me, they weren't rolled out thin enough, so they were a bit on the doughy side. :( Bummer.
I used another recipe for the ricotta filling, which included the drained ricotta cheese in cheesecloth overnight, some sugar, vanilla extract, orange extract, orange zest and shaved dark chocolate. I tell ya this stuff is divine! It almost reminded me of the cannoli I had w/ Bear on his birthday this past summer. Almost, but not quite. Mine definitely had room for improvement :)So what did mine look like? Sorry for the amateur-ish look, but here ya go.
I'll definitely try these again after I find myself some cannoli forms and to make sure that I roll out the dough much much thinner so that they have the delicious crunch! Thanks for the challenge Lisa and Daring Bakers!
6 comments:
Well at least they look great and I'm sure were OK and certainly try them again - thinness is paramount and the oorrect temperature of the oil is also important. Well done and you have about a week before the DK web-robot checks the forum list. Cheers from Audax in Australia and love the photos.
Yummy! Maybe you can make do with a paper towel roll wrapped in parchment, or similar? In any case, people eat cannoli for the innards, not the shell, so you did just dandy :)
like you said, better late than never. Your cannoli looked good though, even if it wasn't in the traditional form. Good idea halving the ingredient. I actually halved mine as well, there's only so much cannoli one person can eat.
OMG..I think your cannolipoleons look perfect..and thin! Then again, I suppose I'm not close enough to taste them, and well, you can't grab food out of photos (can you imagine if we could? We'd all be really really big lol). Anyhoo, it took me two weeks of testing to finally get them right, as it was my first time too, so don't feel bad. Like Audax mentioned, super thin and oil temp is the key :) OH, The filling sounds so fresh and yummy too!
Thanks so much for deep frying with me!
As long as they taste good, it's all good in my book. Besides, it's a learning experience, right?
You did a great job on your cannoli!
Natalie @ Gluten A Go Go
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