If we can't go to Sicily to eat cannoli with ricotta cheese or even go out and buy them, we can try to make them at home, everything from choosing the right ricotta cheese to trying our hand at preparing candied fruit. After all, it’s not like we don’t have the time or indeed the recipe, which if followed step by step, success shall prevail. The taste may not be the same as the Sicilian master pastry chefs, but it will still be an excellent dessert to bring to the table.
Homemade Sicilian Cannoli: from scratch
Follow our recipe step by step to prepare the genuine cannoli wafer and something not everyone knows is that the other secret to this dessert is in the ricotta filling. The ricotta must be strictly sheep's milk ricotta, with the right amount of sugar to give it a sweet but not sickening taste.
The doses for one kg of filling for the cannoli must be as follows: 1 lb 8 oz of ricotta and 12 oz of fine caster sugar. One of the tricks for a successful cream filling is to start working it the day before, putting it in a sieve and covering it well with transparent film. In fact, the ricotta must be perfectly dry before being blended with the sugar: both ingredients must be mixed together, and the cream filling needs to be silky and very smooth. Once ready, before using it to fill the cannoli it must be kept in the fridge (covered with cling film or directly in the sac à poche) for at least eight hours.
Finally, it’s really important that the cannoli are to be filled at the moment, just before consuming them. The wafer tends to get wet and lose its aroma so it’s not a good idea to fill it with cream long before eating the cannoli.
Making candied fruit for cannoli at home
Authentic Sicilian cannoli is never missing candied fruit. Even if the preparation is a bit long (about two weeks) it could well be interesting to prepare them at home with pieces of fruit. Here's how to do it.
The first step is to choose some ripe and whole fruit, wash it well and boil it for a few minutes.
The second step is to divide the fruit by type: on one side the whole small fruit, on the other side the big fruit in pieces and another group with a hard peel to be pierced with a fork.
As far as the syrup for candying is concerned, here are the doses: for 1 lb of fruit weighed fresh, 7 oz sugar and 1 ½ cup of water will be needed. The syrup should be boiled for about 3 minutes and then poured over the fruit. The mixture should then be left to rest for 24 hours. The next day the fruit must be separated from the syrup and more sugar added (about 60 g), boiled and then poured over the fruit and left to rest again.
This operation should be repeated for 7 days, then starting from the eighth day, the dose of sugar should be slightly increased (3 ½ oz instead of 2 ½ oz) and the syrup should be added again to the fruit. On the tenth day finally, the same operation should be repeated with 80 g of sugar and the fruit should be left to rest for another 4 days.
Candied fruit needs to then dry well, covered by a cloth before being finally ready to add to the cannoli.
Browse the photo gallery for more tips!
Read also