It has been a while, but we decided to make these again.


Cannoli Alla Siciliana

Ingredients:
Pastry
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 scant Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon soft unsalted butter
1/4 cup white wine

Vegetable oil for frying

Filling
2 cups ricotta
1 cup whipped heavy cream
3 Tablespoons sugar (or more if you wish)
2 Tablespoons candied fruit, or 3 Tablespoons cocoa and 2
Tablespoons chocolate bits (Jimmies) or 2 Tablespoons finely chopped
nuts.
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Confectioner's sugar

Pastry: Place the flour in a mound on a pastry board or counter. Make a
well in the center, and put in kthe salt, sugarm and dabs of the soft
butter. Add the wine, and with a fork start stirring in the center. Keep
on until most of the flour has been absorbed, and you have a paste yyou can
work with your hands.

Knead the paste until it is smooth and has picked up almost all the
remaining flour. Roll it out no thicker than a noodle, and cut it into 3
1/2" X 3 1/2" squares, if you are using 5-inch-long, 1-inch-diameter cannoli
forms. The diagonal of the squares should not be longer than the forms, so
adjust the size of the squares to the length of the forms.

Place the cannoli forms diagonally on the squares. Wrap the pastry around
the forms, 1 corner over the other, and press the corners to hold them
together. If the corners don't stick with pressure, mositen a finger with
water, apply it to the contact point, and press again.

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with about 3/4 inch of vegetable oil and
heat it to 375°. If you don't have a thermometer, drop a bit of dough in.
If it immediately starts to blister and turn a toast color, the temperature
is right. Because connoli cook very fast and swell in size during the
process, you may find 3 is a good number to cook at a time. Put them in the
hot oil, turning them carefully when one side is done. Remove them as soon
as they have become crisp, a uniform toast color, and rather blistered all
round. The forms, naturally, get terribly hot: a pointed pliers is the
easiest tool with which to lift them out of the pan. Hold the form with the
pliers and give a gentle push with a fork to slip the fried cannolo off the
form. Drain the cannoli on paper towels. Put the forms aside to cool.
When cooled, rewrap, and continue frying until all are done.

Cannoli, when cooked and left unfilled, will keep crisp a day or so in a tin
or a dry place.

If you want to make more than 18 cannoli, the recipe doubles easily using

2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons soft unsalted butter
2/3 cups of white wine.

If you are rolling on a pasta machine, which is ideal for this particular
dough, start at the highest number and bring it down to #3.

Filling: Put the ricotta in a bowl and fold in the whipped cream, adding the
sugar as you fold. Chop the chocolate bits or nuts very fine and fold all
but about a teaspoonful. Add the vanilla.

Using a spatula or a broad knife, fill the cannoli first from one end and
then from the other. Press the filling in gently to make sure the center is
full. Scrape each end to smooth out the cream and decorate the ends by
dipping them in the remaining chocolate bits or nuts.

The cannoli should not be filled too long before serving, as that softens
the pastry. The filling, however, can be chilled, and both parts of this
elegant dessert can be made ahead of time and assembled shortly before the
meal.

Dust with confectioner's sugar.


SOURCE: The Romagnolis' Table