DB - Nov 2009 - Cannoli

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’ve never had much luck with fried deserts, and this month’s cannoli challenge was no different. I wouldn’t saw it was a total failure, but neither was it a success. Look for yourself:


A little too brown and a little too thick, and I didn’t care for the taste at all. I couldn’t see spending more money and time on something I knew I wouldn’t eat, so I skipped the filling. I know, I know, I’m a bad Daring Baker.

Here is the dough just out of the frig and waiting to be rolled and cut.



I didn't have any cannoli forms so as suggested, I used pasta shells.



Here are a few cannoli waiting to go into the grease.



Again, the final product. I guess my grease was too hot, because the cannoli browned much too quickly (after about 1 minute). I lowered the temperature of the grease, but I still had trouble. A few cannoli popped apart and a few wouldn't slide off the pasta shell. I fried a few "cannolipoleons". The flat disks looked better than my rolled attempts, but they all tasted kinds doughy and bland. I guess the "pizazz" of a cannoli comes from the filling and not from the dough itself.