Cannoli Shell Recipe

By cuznvin

Ingredients

• shells
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 eggs plus 2 yolks
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup marsala
• 1 egg white, beaten
• oil, for frying

Preparation

Step 1

make the shells: place the flour on a work surface and make a well in the center. place eggs, yolks, butter and marsala in the well and combine with a fork. gradually incorporate the flour, little by little. knead the dough until smooth, about 10 minutes. let rest, covered with a damp cloth, about 30 minutes in the refrigerator. roll the dough very thin and cut into 4-inch circles (i used a tupperware lid).

2. loosely wrap the dough circles around the cannoli tubes and seal the overlap with beaten egg white. deep fry at 325F until golden brown. remove from oil and carefully slide off the tubes. cool on a wire rack.
OPTIONAL RECIPE

Shell:

* 2 cups Flour
* 1 tsp cinnamon
* 2 tbsp shortening
* 2 tbsp powdered sugar
* 3/4 cup sweet marsala wine
* pinch of salt
* 1 egg white for pasting
* 3 1/2 -4 inch round cookie cutter or anything that diameter you have in your kitchen
* Rolling pin
* 4 Cannoli tubes
* Vegetable Oil for frying

or shells- place all dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse until all the cinnamon has disappeared into the flour. If you don't have a food processor, you can sift this by hand, you will also have to knead this by hand and the recipe continues.

2. Now add the shortening and marsala wine. Pulse till the dough forms a ball. If doing this by hand keep mixing till the dough comes together into a ball. Now place ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 -2 hours.
Heat the oil. Fill the skillet or deep frying pan half way up the side with vegetable oil. Let this heat up while you being working with the dough. After 1-2 hours have passed for the dough, remove from fridge and cut into quarters. Work with one quarter at a time leaving the other quarters covered under the plastic wrap. Roll the quarter piece of dough till it is really thin almost paper like. If it is at all too thick your cannoli shells will be hard and stiff not flaky at all. This is traditionally done with a pasta machine, if you have one great but if not, then roll this as thin as you can get it remembering to flour your surface and rolling pin often.


5. After you have rolled the dough to the thinnest possible, cut as many circles as you can with the cookie cutter. If you don't have a cutter you can print a 4 inch circle and cut it out from the paper and use that as your guide.

6. Place the cannoli tube in the center of one of the circle cut outs from the dough and roll one end onto the cannoli tube and rub some egg white on it, then bring the other end of the circle cut out to meet that end with the egg white. The egg white side should be on the bottom. Look at the pictures I have posted to see what it is supposed to look like.

7. Set up a pan with lots of tissue to soak up the oil from frying. The oil should be temped at 360 degrees. If you don't have a thermometer then sprinkle some flour in the oil and if it quickly goes to the side then you know the oil is ready.



8. Drop the cannoli tubes in the oil, 2 at a time and fry for JUST A FEW SECONDS! you want a nice light color not dark and burnt! After you fry it for just a few seconds, with a spatula, remove cannoli shells from oil and place on the pan with the tissues. Gently slide the cannoli shell off of the tube and put back into the oil to fry for another FEW SECONDS. The reason for doing this is to ensure the inside of the shell also gets a nice browned color. Repeat this step till your dough is finished or you have the amount of shells you need. The dough can be kept in the freezer if you don't want to use all of it.


9. After frying all the shells, let them cool for a few hours or even overnight. I actually made my filling and shells on the same night and didn't assemble the cannoli until the next day.