I made cannoli Tuesday night.

I think my first experience with cannoli was with my sister (the doctor) when we went to Disney World/Epcot Center years ago. The second was this summer while puttering around San Francisco.

When our guys’ small group made plans for a big cook-out with girls I figured this was as good an excuse as any to see if I could make the stuff. Chicks dig dessert; I like chicks. Win/win. And the correlative excuse: Time to buy new kitchen equipment, including a new Sil-Pin silicone rolling pin.

I used two recipes from AllRecipes.com: one for the cannoli shells, and one for the filling. I doubled the filling recipe and easily filled all of the shells with very little leftovers. These recipes appear to have the ingredient amounts just about right.

Last Saturday I started calling and visiting stores I thought might have the cannoli forms I needed in order to fry the shells. (I wouldn’t order the forms online, since I didn’t think the second-day shipping costs were worth a $4 product.) Finally, after 7 or so tries, I got a tip that Fountain Drug had what I needed. And sho’ ‘nuff. I gave ‘em a call, and they had a package of cannoli forms waiting for me at the register. In fact, they have lots of specialty kitchen and baking items there. I would never have suspected.

Things I would do differently the next time:
1. Double the cinnamon in the dough. I thought the taste was too subtle.
2. Start sooner. Rolling + frying = no fun when starting at midnight.
3. Better estimate how many shells to fill. When the shells get soggy, it's like eating a sweet-cheesy chimichanga. Not bad, but not exactly what I was going for. Next time I won’t fill them all if I don’t think I will serve them all.
4. I might consider adding more chocolate chips to the ends of the cannoli once they are all filled.
5. Instead of going for a long tube o’ sweet cheesy goodness, I may try to make the shells shorter and more open at the ends (like the picture in that Amazon link). I think I can do this by actually cutting circles out of the dough instead of ragged (American) footballs.

Things I did do differently:
1. I didn't have an amaretto liqueur; I used hazelnut (specifically, Frangelico).
2. The dough didn't really come together as-is. I had to add a dash more wine.
3. There was no particular oil specified; I used vegetable.
4. I don't own a piping bag; I sacrificed a large-ish Ziploc bag with a wee bit of a corner sliced off.

There’s nothing too excited about making the filling, at least with this recipe. Making the shells, though, is the time-consuming part. From left to right: 1) Rolling, cutting, forming  2) Staging  3) Frying  4) Drying/cooling  5) Preparing to receive filling