How to Make Authentic Sicilian Cannoli — A Palermo Pasticciere and Italian-American Food Historian Walk Through the Exact Technique

Transcript

Speaker: Imagine this. A pastry bag filled with snow-white sweetened drained sheep's-milk ricotta flecked with tiny dark cubes of seventy-percent Sicilian dark chocolate. The wide round piping tip slides into one open end of a freshly-fried golden-bubbly-blistered cannolo shell resting on a worn marble counter. A slow squeeze. The pristine ricotta filling extrudes smoothly through the shell and emerges from the OTHER open end in a perfect dome of glossy white. A quick dip — one end into crushed bright-emerald Pistacchi di Bronte, the other into glistening orange candied peel. Then a generous snow of zucchero a velo cascading from above. The first bite — shatter of crispy fried shell, cool sweet creamy ricotta, the dark-chocolate crunch, the salty pistachio, the floral candied orange. Madonna. This is u'cannolu — the cannolo, the most iconic dessert of Sicily. Tonight we make it from scratch. I am joined by Palermo master pasticciere Giuseppe Lo Bianco, thirty years at his family's Vucciria pasticceria, and Italian-American food historian Maria DeLuca from Brooklyn Bensonhurst.

Speaker: Mamma mia, Anna! Cannoli — u'cannolu in Sicilian — is the soul of Sicilian pasticceria, you understand! Listen to me carefully. Cannolo, this name come from cannolu, ze Sicilian word for tube. It is a fried tube, an empty crispy tube, then we fill with sweet ricotta. Eight hundred year old, this dessert! Originate from Palermo and Caltanissetta region in time of Saracens, ninth century, AD. Ze Saracens bring sugar cane, almond, ricotta-cheese-making technique to Sicily. Then later it become traditional dessert of Carnevale, ze festival before Lent — and bellissimo, today we eat any time. But — è importante — real Palermo cannolo must have THREE thing. First — shell from real strutto, ze pork lard, give shatter. Second — ricotta di pecora, sheep-milk ricotta, drained twenty-four hour, then sweetened. Third — fill JUST before serve. Never before! Subito mangiare! Eat right away!

Speaker: And that's exactly right, Giuseppe — the cannolo is one of the few Italian desserts that traveled from Sicily to America almost completely intact, you know? When Sicilian immigrants started arriving in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side in the eighteen-eighties through the nineteen-twenties, they brought the cannolo with them, and the dish anchored Italian-American identity in places like Manhattan's Little Italy, Boston's North End, Chicago's Taylor Street. Ferrara Bakery in Manhattan opened in eighteen ninety-two — they still hand-fry cannoli shells daily. Mike's Pastry in the North End opened nineteen forty-six and now sells thousands of cannoli a day. Court Pastry Shop in Cobble Hill Brooklyn — same thing. The Italian-American version sometimes uses cow-milk ricotta instead of sheep, and adds chocolate chips throughout, but the basic structure stays the same. The dough, the fry, the drain, the pipe-just-before — these are sacred Sicilian rules even in Brooklyn.

Speaker: Subito! Now I tell you ricotta technique — è la cosa più importante! Ze most important thing! For eight large cannoli, you need cinque-cento gram — five hundred gram — ricotta di pecora, sheep-milk ricotta from Sicily, or whole-milk ricotta from grocery store. Doesn't matter brand — but ze ricotta MUST be drained, capisci? You take cheesecloth, fold four time thick, line a sieve over a bowl, put ze ricotta inside, cover with plastic wrap, refrigerate for twelve to twenty-four hour at four degree Celsius. During this time, half ze water in ze ricotta — about cento-cinquanta milliliter, 150 ml — drain into ze bowl below. THIS is non-negotiabile! If you skip this step, ze cannoli will be soggy in ten minute, ze shells will weep, e disgusting. Strutto for ze dough — Mamma mia — è la tradizione, but butter OK if you cannot find. But strutto give ze real shatter.

Speaker: Now the shell dough. In a clean bowl combine 250 grams of Italian double-zero flour — that's flour ground to the finest possible texture — with 30 grams of granulated sugar, 1 gram of fine sea salt, and 1 gram of ground cinnamon. Cut in 30 grams of cold lard or unsalted butter using your fingertips, working until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Now add 1 large egg yolk, 30 milliliters of dry Marsala wine — and please use DRY Marsala secco, not the sweet kind which throws off the balance — and 30 milliliters of white-wine vinegar. The vinegar is critical — the acidity tenderizes the gluten and helps create the characteristic bubbly blistered surface during frying. Mix to a firm but pliable dough. Knead by hand for 10 full minutes on a clean wooden surface until silky and smooth. Wrap in plastic and rest at room temperature for at least 1 hour — and ideally 2 hours. The rest relaxes the gluten so you can roll it paper-thin without springback.

Speaker: Now ze shaping and fry — è momento bellissimo! Roll ze dough VERY thin — uno millimetro, one millimeter — by hand with rolling pin, or use pasta machine setting seven, ze second-thinnest. Cut ze dough into nine-centimeter circle with cookie cutter or glass. Take metal cannoli tube — twelve centimeter long, one-and-half centimeter diameter — and wrap one circle of dough around tube, overlap ze edge slightly. Brush ze overlap with beaten egg white, press to seal — è importante, otherwise ze tube fall apart in oil! Heat one liter sunflower oil in deep pan to ESATTAMENTE — exactly! — cento-ottanta degree Celsius, three-fifty-six Fahrenheit. Use thermometer! Drop two or three wrapped tubes into hot oil. Fry for novanta secondi — ninety second — exactly. Ze shell turn golden, bubbly, blistered surface, ecco! Lift out with slotted spoon, drain on paper towel, cool five minute, then GENTLY slide ze tube out from inside ze shell. Bellissimo!

Speaker: And now we make the filling. Take your fully-drained ricotta — it should now weigh about 350 grams after losing 150 milliliters of whey — and put it in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add 150 grams of sifted powdered sugar — sift it, don't skip the sift, lumps in ricotta filling are a tragedy — and 1 gram of pure vanilla extract or the seeds scraped from one vanilla pod. Beat on medium speed for exactly 3 minutes until the ricotta is smooth, glossy, and noticeably thicker than when you started. Some Sicilian pasticcieri also pass it through a fine sieve at this point for ultimate silkiness — that's optional but transformative. Then by hand, fold in 50 grams of finely diced 70-percent dark chocolate. Optional but classic: 1 teaspoon of orange-blossom water for that subtle Saracen North-African floral note. Cover and refrigerate the filling at 4 Celsius until ready to pipe — but use within 24 hours.

Speaker: Final step — assembly! And listen — fill JUST before serving, never before, MAI! Otherwise shells go soggy in thirty minute, ruin everything! Take piping bag with one-and-half-centimeter plain round tip, fill with ze ricotta. Insert tip into one open end of ze cannolo shell, squeeze gently while pulling out — ze ricotta come out ze other end automatically, fill ze shell perfect. Pipe both end so ricotta dome out symmetric. Now subito — dip one exposed ricotta end into small ceramic dish of crushed Pistacchi di Bronte DOP, ze bright-green Sicilian pistachio. Dip ze other end into small dish of arancia candita, ze tiny dice of glossy orange candied peel. Place on ceramic plate. With sieve, dust generous zucchero a velo, ze powdered sugar, all over ze top — like fresh snow on ze cannolo. Serve immediately with espresso or sweet Marsala dessert wine. Magari un bicchierino. Madonna che bontà!

Speaker: Three takeaways. First — the ricotta drain is non-negotiable. Take 500 grams of sheep-milk or whole-milk ricotta, line a sieve with cheesecloth folded four times, set over a bowl, refrigerate at 4 Celsius for 12 to 24 hours. About 150 milliliters of whey will drain off. Skip this step and your cannoli are soggy within 10 minutes. Second — the shell dough is 250 grams of Italian double-zero flour, 30 grams sugar, 1 gram salt, 1 gram cinnamon, 30 grams lard or butter, 1 egg yolk, 30 milliliters of dry Marsala secco, and 30 milliliters of white-wine vinegar — knead 10 minutes, rest 1-2 hours, roll to 1 millimeter thin, cut 9-centimeter circles, wrap around metal tubes sealed with egg white, fry at exactly 180 Celsius / 356 Fahrenheit for 90 seconds until golden and bubbly-blistered. Third — whip the drained ricotta with 150 grams sifted powdered sugar plus vanilla, fold in 50 grams diced 70-percent dark chocolate, pipe into shells from BOTH ends JUST before serving, dip ends in crushed Pistacchi di Bronte and candied orange, dust with powdered sugar. Eat within 30 minutes with espresso. Thank you, Giuseppe Lo Bianco. Thank you, Maria DeLuca. Until next time.