To Cannoli or not to cannoli...

I had all the intentions of doing the Cannoli. I swear I did…

… but the fettuccine attachment of my pasta machine started calling me and that was the end of the cannoli dream.

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.

First the recipe:

CANNOLI SHELLS

• 2 cups (250 grams/16 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons(28 grams/1 ounce) sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 grams/0.06 ounces) unsweetened baking cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon (approx. 3 grams/0.11 ounces) salt
• 3 tablespoons (42 grams/1.5 ounces) vegetable or olive oil
• 1 teaspoon (5 grams/0.18 ounces) white wine vinegar
• Approximately 1/2 cup (approx. 59 grams/approx. 4 fluid ounces/approx. 125 ml) sweet Marsala or any white or red wine you have on hand- I've used rose
• 1 large egg, separated (you will need the egg white but not the yolk)
• Vegetable or any neutral oil for frying – about 2 quarts (8 cups/approx. 2 litres)

Pasta Machine method: Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Starting at the middle setting, run one of the pieces of dough through the rollers of a pasta machine. Lightly dust the dough with flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Pass the dough through the machine repeatedly, until you reach the highest or second highest setting. The dough should be about 4 inches wide and thin enough to see your hand through. Continue rolling out the remaining dough. If you do not have enough cannoli tubes for all of the dough, lay the pieces of dough on sheets of plastic wrap and keep them covered until you are ready to use them. Roll, cut out and fry the cannoli.

Since I didn't exactly do the cannoli I won't put the directions here. But you can find them at the hostess blog.

Here’s what I though: cannoli, fettuccine… it’s all Italian, right? What about some ravioli? Ok, to go with the theme let’s do some as well…

I’ve made some filled with Nutella. I've cut round shapes of the rolled dough, put a tablespoon of Nutella in the middle, closed and pressed the edges with a fork.

I've also made other raviolli filled with orange pastry cream.

For these I've used a big stripe of dough and put tablespoons of pastry cream with a about 5 cm (2 inch) distance between them. I've closed the dough to the other side, pressing around the cream and cut around each one.

But I was getting a bit tired of Italy, so I decided to move to Mexico... Why not make more tortilla chips?

So here they are, canolli tortilla chips with raspberry pastry cream dip.

I'll leave you with all non-cannoli family: fetticini, raviolli and tortilla chips! Enjoy them while I'll enjoy a short trip to Berlin! I'll tell you about it when I'm back!