Anyone have a good recipe for cannoli cream? I've always bought my cannoli's for the holidays but this year, as I can get the shells at a newly found Italian Market, I want to make my own cream and do them up fresh.

I may as well start the hunt now.

I do have the Silver Spoon and Talismano but haven't looked in either yet.

Thanks!

The cream is pretty simple, but !==% based on the perfect ingredient: ricotta. You need a really first-rate goat ricotta, utrafresh and straight off the cheese factory, none of the packaged stuff. If you can find it, just stir it with a for to turn it into cream with some sugar and a few drops of pure orange blossom (or jasmin blossom) flavor.

I've used a recipe from Gourmet for a couple of years now - touted to be Sicilian cannoli. And I make the shells, too. My friends all rave about them, but they are very polite, eat most everything I cook and what do Alabamians really know about cannoli? The result is truly very good and definitely worth the 90 mile drive for fresh ricotta. You will note the addition of goat cheese in order to get American cow's milk ricotta to match the flavor of Italian ricotta.

1 lb. fresh ricotta (I can only get cow's milk ricotta)
2 oz. mild goat cheese
1/4 c. confectioner's sugar
1 T. minced candied orange peel (if I have lots of oranges, I make my own)
1/2 t. orange flower water
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/3 c. unsalted pistachios, chopped
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Place ricotta, goat cheese, sugar, orange flower water and cinnamon in a bowl and beat at med. speed for 1 min. Do not over-beat. Fold in pistachios, orange peel and chocolate.

Some folks don't like candied fruits, especially the commercial kind, and I think you could omit if you are one of those folks.

I love love love cannoli. A little Italian joint in Montgomery, AL used to import cannoli from Angelo Brocato's in New Orleans. Katrina put an end to that but I hear the owners may soon be able to get them again. I certainly hope so.

I have also made Gina DePalma's mocha cannoli cream - very good too. And I also have a recipe that calls for addition of pine nuts - also good.

Here is a link for Gina DePalma's Cannoli with Coffee Cream. Excellent.

www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cookie-cannoli-with-coffee-cream

I use sheeps milk ricotta and so do the places I went to in sicily, and some places it was really strong!

whipped with powdered sugar and then chocolate chips,
the ends are then dipped in the chopped pistachio's. I never saw a candied cherry which I always see in the states.

I like the idea of the orange flower water ad cinnamon, which are used in a lot of desserts in sicily, even with their watermelon "gelo"