Cannoli-ventures: Taking matters into my own frying pan

 

Back in Oregon, there were not the same opportunities for cannolis, so one Saturday night I decided to take matters into my own hands and make some. My friend Alex was game for the challenge. I found a recipe that seemed manageable and we picked up all the necessary ingredients. To my dismay (though not surprisingly) Safeway does not stock cannoli tubes, so I had to get a bit more creative. We decided to make tubed of aluminum foil to wrap the shells around for frying and bought some metal skewers that could be bent and shoved through the foil tubes, allowing us to dip them into the oil.

Thankfully we found a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the oil. Our frying technique consisted of Alex standing over the stove and adjusting the temperature of the oil for two hours with a giant oven mitt. We jammed out to Girl Talk as he held the skewers of cannoli shells in the oil for a few minutes at a time and I rolled dough circles like a maniac. We let each shell cool a bit before removing the foil mold and managed to get only a few tiny oil burns in the process. The shells got thicker than I wanted when fried, but it they had a nice crunchy texture.

As I rolled dough and Alex deep fried it, other friends made the ricotta cheese filling. Unfortunately it turned out more liquidy than intended, but it was all we had to work with. We threw it in the fridge for a while and let the shells cool completely. Then it was game time. I filled a giant plastic bag with the filling and piped it into each of the shells as quickly as possible so that it didn't drip out too much. They needed more refridgeration still, but after an hour or so they were ready. I topped them with sprinkles and chocolate chips, and promptly devoured several.

Overall, there is a lot I would change for the next time I make cannolis (correct equipment would be a start...), but this was a fun first attempt. My team was great and though it made the kitchen we used boiling hot for hours to come, they were very accomodating. It was fun to take control of a cannoli-venture and not have to wander around for hours to find one. Though I guess this probably took a while longer, there were so many! I got to eat cannolis for days... 

recap:
date - April 12, 2010 
location - Salem, OR
company - alex
food - cannolis, lots of them
review - need work, but good enough for now