Pistachio Cannoli with Mascarpone Ricotta Cream is the only thing I remember clearly about my last morning in Catania. The rest of that day is fog. The cannoli I can still taste.
The cooking class was in a narrow kitchen above Via Etnea, run by a woman named Rosa whose grandmother lived in the apartment two floors up, directly over a trattoria where Rosa’s cousin Salvo cooked the dinner service. Rosa learned the savory recipes from Salvo. The sweets she learned from her grandmother, who used to send down trays of cannoli to the restaurant on Sundays. That morning the air in the kitchen smelled like burnt sugar, fried lard, and the lemon Rosa had grated into a separate bowl for something else.
The Class in Catania That Ruined Other Cannoli for Me
Rosa did not like the word demonstration. She handed me a pasta machine and told me to roll the dough thinner. Then thinner. Then thinner again. If you cannot read the newspaper through it, it is not ready, she said, and slid a copy of La Sicilia under the sheet. I could read the headline. Barely.
The shell dough she made was almost black with cocoa and Marsala, which surprised me. I had always assumed the deep brown color came from frying too long. Rosa shook her head. The cocoa and the Marsala. That is the color. Fried too long would be bitter.
She also told me, while pressing dough around metal tubes, that real Sicilian cannoli are filled to order. Never sitting in a case. Never pre-stuffed in the morning to be eaten at four in the afternoon. The shell goes soft, the moisture moves, the whole point disappears. I had eaten plenty of bad cannoli before this and had no idea why. Now I knew.
What Goes Into It
- 00 flour, with extra for the bench
- Granulated sugar and a spoon of unsweetened cocoa
- Cinnamon and a pinch of fine sea salt
- Cold lard, the real stuff, for the shells and for the fry
- One whole egg and a separate egg white for sealing
- Dry Marsala wine and a teaspoon of white wine vinegar
- Fresh sheep’s-milk ricotta, drained overnight in cheesecloth
- Cold mascarpone, sifted powdered sugar, vanilla, and another pinch of cinnamon
- Unsweetened pistachio paste, ideally Bronte
- Shelled Bronte pistachios, finely chopped, for the cream and for pressing into the ends
- Candied orange peel, finely diced, if you want it
Bringing Catania Home to My Kitchen
Back in LA I had to chase ingredients for a week. The sheep’s-milk ricotta I found at a small Italian shop in Eagle Rock where the owner pretends not to remember me and then asks about my last trip. The Bronte pistachios and the pistachio paste came mail-order from a Sicilian importer in New Jersey. Not romantic. Cheaper than flying back to Mount Etna.
I used my one good chef’s knife, the one with the slightly wonky handle, to dice the candied orange. The pasta machine clamped to the edge of the wooden table that catches the morning light. I had Lucio Battisti playing low. It was a Friday afternoon and the only thing on the calendar was this.
What I changed from Rosa’s version. Not much. She uses lard for the fry, and I use lard too, even though I know most home cooks default to vegetable oil. The shells taste different in lard. Drier, somehow. More biscuit-like at the edges. The flavor lasts longer. I tried oil once and missed the lard immediately.
Inside the Pot, the Shells Go Dark
The first time I dropped a shell into 350-degree lard I was sure I had ruined it. The dough went almost black within ten seconds. Blisters rose across the surface like little brown islands. The Marsala in the dough was burning off, the cocoa was darkening, and the sugars were caramelizing all at once. The whole thing looked wrong.
It was not wrong. It was correct. Forty more seconds and the shell was crisp enough to tap with a fork and hear it ring hollow. The trick is to trust the color. Pull too early and the inside is still doughy. Pull at the moment the blisters look almost too dark and the shell will set into something that shatters cleanly when you bite it.
I lost a shell to overconfidence the first attempt. I had stacked the metal tubes too close on the rack and the second batch went in still hot, and the dough wrapped around them slid and split. Cool the tubes between batches. Always.
Why the Mascarpone Ricotta Cream Matters More Than People Think
Rosa’s grandmother used only ricotta. No mascarpone. The mascarpone is a newer thing, added by modern pastry makers to make the filling hold its shape and to feel a little richer on the tongue. I like it. Rosa likes it too, though she said her grandmother would have called it cheating. Probably true.
The ricotta has to be sheep’s milk if you can find it. The flavor is grassier, slightly tangier, and far less wet than cow’s milk. If you cannot get sheep’s, use a very good whole-milk cow’s ricotta and drain it twenty-four hours. Wet ricotta is the death of the filling. Once I rushed the drain to six hours and the cream piped out like soup. Lesson learned.
The pistachio paste is the soul of the cream. Bronte pistachios grow in volcanic soil on the slopes of Mount Etna. They got PDO status in 2009. The harvest only happens every other year, in late summer, and Bronte throws a whole festival around it called the Sagra del Pistacchio. The color of the paste alone, somewhere between forest moss and old jade, tells you the pistachios are the real thing. Generic pistachios will not get you there.
Serving Them the Catanese Way
Pipe to order. I cannot stress this enough. If you fill the cannoli even an hour before serving, the shells start to soften and the whole point of the dish disappears.
I press the exposed ends of the cream into a little pile of more chopped Bronte pistachios, dust the whole tray with powdered sugar, and bring them out with espresso. The first time I did this for friends here, one of them ate three before sitting down. A small triumph.
I miss Catania when I make these. Not in a sad way. In the way you miss a kitchen you only stood in once.
Pistachio Cannoli With Mascarpone Ricotta Cream
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Set the ricotta in a cheesecloth-lined fine-mesh sieve over a bowl and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, or overnight, to drain off excess whey.
- For the shells, whisk together the 00 flour, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Rub in the cold lard with your fingertips until the mixture looks sandy.
- Add the whole egg, Marsala, and vinegar. Mix until a stiff, slightly tacky dough forms. Knead on the counter for 8 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. The dough should feel firm, not soft. Wrap tightly and rest at room temperature for 1 hour.
- While the dough rests, make the cream. Press the drained ricotta through a fine-mesh sieve into a chilled bowl to make it silky. Add the mascarpone, sifted powdered sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of cinnamon. Beat on medium speed for about 1 minute, just until smooth and thick. Do not overbeat or it will loosen.
- Fold in the pistachio paste and 0.25 cup of the chopped pistachios. Fold in the candied orange peel if using. Cover and refrigerate until ready to fill.
- Cut the dough into quarters. Working with one piece at a time and keeping the rest covered, roll it through a pasta machine, reducing the setting each pass, until the sheet is paper-thin — you should just be able to read newsprint through it.
- Cut the sheet into 4-inch ovals. Wrap each oval around a metal cannoli tube, brush a thin stripe of egg white where the edges overlap, and press firmly to seal. Repeat with remaining dough; you should get about 12 shells.
- Heat the lard or oil in a heavy pot to 350 F. Fry the shells, still on their tubes, two or three at a time, turning gently with a slotted spoon, for 1 to 2 minutes until deeply blistered and crisp. The color will be a rich dark brown from the cocoa and Marsala — that is correct.
- Lift the shells out and drain on a rack set over paper towels. As soon as they are cool enough to handle but still warm, slide them off the tubes by gripping the tube with a kitchen towel. Cool the tubes between batches before reusing.
- Let the shells cool completely. They will crisp further as they sit. At this stage they can be stored airtight at room temperature for up to 4 days.
- Just before serving, transfer the chilled cream to a piping bag fitted with a large round tip. Pipe firmly into one end of a shell until the cream meets in the middle, then pipe into the other end to fill completely.
- Spread the remaining 0.5 cup chopped pistachios on a small plate. Press both exposed ends of each cannolo into the pistachios so they stick to the cream.
- Arrange the cannoli on a platter, dust generously with powdered sugar, and serve immediately with espresso or small glasses of chilled sweet Marsala.