CAKE, COUTURE & CIE

And it's round #2 for me as a Daring Baker. And here are the obligatory "blog-checking lines" so they can verify that I've followed the challenge:

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.

This was my first time ever making cannoli, or any deep-fried dessert for that matter. When visiting some friends in New Orleans a few years ago, I picked up a box of beignet mix with the best of intentions but never quite got around to making them. Although I thought the frying step of the recipe would be the most daunting part, in reality it went smoothly and with no major problems encountered -- no splattering, no burns.

The trickiest part of the recipe was getting the dough rolled out thin enough and then getting it to stay that way. Above you can see the little cannoli soldiers all lined up and ready to go, waiting for the oil to heat up. Well, after frying the first one, it was clear that they weren't thin enough. I had to re-roll each of them until I reached a thickness that wouldn't cause them to open up (you can see the steady progress below). Cannoli are supposed to have a "blistered" appearance, and I'm afraid mine weren't rolled thin enough for this to happen.

As for the final product, I can only vouch for the shells as anyone who knows me knows I steer clear of anything too creamy. The dough contained wine, chocolate and cinnamon, and I found that the shells not only tasted good, but also smelled quite nice when I was rolling them out. After they had cooled, I had fun dipping them in chocolate and sprinkles and filling them with mascarpone.