I must admit that when I found out that this month's challenge was cannoli I didn't get the warm and fuzzies. If you couldn't already tell from reading past posts I'm a big fan of all things fried, but for some reason I've never been attracted to the cannoli. Even in my travels throughout Italy it's never been top of mind as a must-have treat. I always steered towards the simply delicioso gelato. But I guess that's the whole point of this baking group; make things we wouldn't necessarily do on our own. So despite my reservations I persevered and ventured onward...
The recipe and overall preparation of the dough was very straight forward. Trouble started brewing when I had to bust out the jug of vegetable oil to fry the cannoli. I stupidly decided to let it get to temperature unattended on the stove while I was in my office surfing the net. Mamma mia..big mistake! When I ran back to the kitchen to check on the oil temperature the marker on the candy thermometer was all the way to the top where there were no numbers. Not good! I threw a piece of dough into the oil to test how hot it really was and as soon as I did the glass bulb on the bottom of the thermometer shattered.
Long story short, my cannoli shells came out a bit more tan than I would have liked. Who am I kidding? Those suckers were burnt to a crisp! But I wanted to complete the challenge so I ended up filling them with some vanilla bean pastry cream and chopped pistachios. Will I make cannolis again? Never say never, but based on this last experience it's definitely going to be a long time coming.
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 Ktichen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michele Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.
