The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele ofParsley, 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.

Well, this challenge was not so great for me. I probably should have picked some weekend when I’d be alone to do my cooking, but I thought it might be fun to wait and make them while my grandma was here. As it turned out, the kids were crazy the whole time and I ended up doing most of the work after Grandma was in bed or while she was playing with the kids, so we really didn’t do any of it together. Oh, well. Here’s my story anyway.

I finally started my challenge Tuesday night, around 11, after everyone except myself and the baby had gone to bed. I was planning on mixing up my dough (which needed to sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours) and filling. Surely this couldn’t take too long; after all, I had watched a video earlier of a chef making cannoli, and it only took him 5 minutes. I left III playing on the floor in the living room where I could see him, and where he was perfectly content, and I got started.

I knew I needed to drain my ricotta for the filling, so I thought I would do that while I made the dough. Upon reading a little closer, I discovered I needed to let it drain for at least an hour, so at this point I decided that I would be making the filling in the morning, and I’d be done even sooner than I thought. So I grabbed a bowl, a strainer, and my cheesecloth.

I didn't realize there was so much cheesecloth! How much are you supposed to use??

I cut some of it off and then plopped my ricotta cheese into the bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, a towel, and weighed it down with some applesauce. I thought it was a pretty funny sight in my fridge:

So then I moved on to the dough. Things were just zipping along, and I was feeling so optimistic and excited. I kept thinking how wonderful it was to be baking late at night, and how much I am not a morning person, and how thankful I was that III was being so amiable (although I would have preferred him to be sleeping!). Anyway, the first part was easy; I mixed together all of my dry ingredients, and prepared to turn it all into a nice, soft dough.

I even enjoyed using the vinegar, which reminded me of a bottle of vodka; later, I would wish it was vodka...

Now, the directions said you could mix it by hand, but then it kept talking about putting it in your food processor, which I don’t have, so I kept mixing it by hand. I lightly incorporated the oil, then the vinegar, and then the wine, waiting and waiting for it to turn into the nice soft dough as directed. Then I figured it would just take me longer since I was mixing by hand, so I stirred and I stirred. Then I became impatient and thought maybe I’d try my little hand mixer to speed things up. So I brought it out, and in the little areas it managed to mix, I guess it became dough-y, but it kept clogging up the mixer:

So then I tried dumping it all into this tiny bowl mixer, which also failed to do anything but dirty up another dish for me, so I dumped it back into my original bowl. It was still dry and crumbly, so I thought perhaps I needed more wine, and added more in tiny increments. It helped very little. Naturally, I began going back over every step I had made thus far, trying to determine where I erred. Maybe I didn’t count my oil correctly; so I added more oil. I gave up on the spoon and just started mashing the dough together, willing it to stick.

Of course, at this point III also became unhappy. He pooped his pants and had crawled into the kitchen and was sort of whining at my feet. The smell did nothing to help my mood. I had been mixing for nearly an hour and I finally gave up. I stuck my ball of elephant skin in the fridge and took care of the kid. I went to bed rather unhappy.

The ball of elephant skin

I had come this far, so I knew I couldn’t quit. I at least mixed together my filling the next day, making some with chocolate chips, and some with mascarpone cheese and pumpkin (just followed the original recipe; didn’t get all creative). My mood was slightly improved by the yumminess of this part—and the lack of disaster.

I proceeded to attack the dough, despite crazy kids and an increasing feeling of hopelessness as I pulled the dough from the fridge. I tore the ball in half and began beating it with my rolling pin. Some time later it started to thin, but not in a nice, smooth consistent manner. It kept cracking and pulling apart, but I was determined. Just imagine me beating and rolling, and stopping to help the kids, and then more beating and rolling until I finally got it thin enough to cut out. Repeat this process for at least an hour.

Found a lid to make my circles

Finally had 8 passable pieces

I thought they at least looked nice at this point

As you can see, I baked my cannoli instead of frying, simply because I didn’t want to deal with the mess and massive waste of oil. Do they seem a little purple to you? No one else’s seem to look purple, but mine did. I used red wine, but that’s what the recipe called for . . . maybe it was the extra drops I added. Anyway, I had read to put them in a 500° oven for 10 minutes, so I put them in and set the timer for 7 minutes. I was again disappointed.

My burned cannoli

The thicker ones didn’t burn as much, and were mostly edible, especially once filled. I managed (with the help of Lloyd) to roll out another 8, and only baked them for 5 minutes, which still ended up with blackened bottoms, but not as much as this first batch. They did bubble up a little, which I thought was perhaps a positive thing, but I didn’t expect them to look like the fried kind anyway. So I filled them and ate them, and was not awed, but at least I had some dessert for Thanksgiving!

As an after-note, they still tasted a little wine-y, even after being cooked. And still have half the mound of dough in my fridge . . .

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