Easy Cannoli Cream

Recipe: Mini Cannoli Cream Cups

Source:  Cooking with Sugar

Time: 40 minutes

Ease: 5

Taste: 8

Leftover Value: 8 

*For the first day only.  It won't keep for much longer as cream gets watery and shells get soggy.

Down the Drain or Keep it in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

Cannoli have always been an untouchable dessert for me.  They are one of my favorite desserts of all time, but intimidate me like crazy.  Then I found this recipe that made them not so scary, and actually, a little healthier.

Just a little.  Too much would be no good.

We start with ricotta cheese which God created to make the world a better place.  The recipe suggests staining the ricotta in cheese cloth over night to remove excess water in the cheese.  This helps to make the cheese mixture thicker.

Patience is not one of my major virtues in the kitchen.  So instead of the whole overnight procedure, I just dumped my ricotta into a bowl I lined with paper towels.  I pressed the paper towels into the ricotta lightly to get rid of any moisture left from it sitting in its container.

The cream is as simple as: ricotta, powdered sugar, white sugar, and vanilla.  The recipe says to wait and sprinkle the mini chocolate chips on top of the final product, but I wanted my cannoli bites to be pretty authentic.  Nothing is better than cannoli with loads of chocolate chips mixed right into the cheese.

After this mixture is made it goes into the fridge to firm up for as long as it takes you to make the crusts.

The shells make this recipe a little healthier than typical cannoli.  Ordinarily, cannoli are made up of the cheese mixture and a shell which has been formed into a tube and fried.

If I'm being completely honest, my heart really longs for those kinds of cannoli.

In my own home cooking though, these are a fair trade.

Sprinkle a little sugar on top of a rolled out refrigerated pie crust.

Sprinkle a little cinnamon.

Swirl the sugar and cinnamon around with your hand.  Spread it out all over the surface of the pie crust.

If you are unlike me and can plan ahead, mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl so that you only have to sprinkle once.

Yes, that sounds like a much smarter option.

After you've either sprinkled sugar then cinnamon, or sprinkled a cinnamon sugar mixture, use a rolling pin to lightly press the mixture into the crust.

Now cut out your mini pie crusts.  Using a circular cookie cutter, a biscuit cutter, or a cup of a little under 3 inches wide make circles close together in the pie crust. 

Press each circle into an ungreased mini muffin pan.

You can press the corners down perfectly if you want.  Clearly, I did not.  I call it an artistic flair.

You'll be left with a lot of extra pie crust.  Don't throw it away!  Pack it firmly in a ball.

And roll it out to make some more crusts.  One pie crust should yield between 16-18 mini pie crusts total.

They are so pretty!  The cinnamon sugar mixture is the perfect bit of flavor, leaving them still a healthier option than deep fried shells.

To fill the cannoli cups, put the cannoli cream into a gallon size ziploc bag.  Cut off one of the bottom corners and use it as a pastry bag to fill each cup.  Then sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top of each cup.

These were so close to the real thing that I think I went into shock over the fact that I had made them.  They work as a perfect substitute for the real thing.