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  • "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

  • Hey, what's up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week

  • we're using the mere mention of cannoli in "The Godfather" as an excuse to make cannoli, not to mention as an excuse to make

  • cannoli mold witch fingers. I mean how often we actually get the opportunity to do- oh oh! Okay. All right, enough horseplay.

  • Let's get down to business

  • And the first order of business is to drain some whole milk ricotta

  • In a fine mesh sieve for at least an hour in the fridge to get rid of some of the excess moisture

  • While that's draining

  • We're going to make our cannoli dough. This starts by combining 250 grams of all-purpose flour, 30 grams of powdered sugar, sifted

  • Sifted, no matter how much effort it takes. Two teaspoons cocoa powder

  • one teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of instant espresso powder

  • Which we're gonna pulse to combine in our food processor before adding 30 milliliters

  • each of Marsala wine and white wine vinegar

  • Then once that's nice and sandy

  • We're going to add 2 tablespoons of butter and one whole egg

  • Covering and processing for 30 to 45 seconds until our table just can't take it anymore

  • The whole world is shaking and a rough ball of dough forms

  • we regret buying that crappy little table top tripod, and bring our cannoli dough over to a

  • Lightly floured surface to knead for two to five minutes until it becomes silky and elastic. Then much like pasta dough

  • We're going to wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour

  • Making sure to slap it seven times because that's an Italian tradition that I just made up and getting ready to grease up our cannoli molds.

  • Normally, you just want to spray these down with Pam, but I don't have any Pam

  • So I'm going to drizzle them with vegetable oil and then roll them around in a rimmed baking sheet until they are evenly coated with lubricant.

  • Then, again, just like pasta

  • It's time to turn our dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out thin and wide.

  • We're aiming for one sixteenth of an inch thick. If you can't measure that, then who cares?

  • Just roll it out super thin and then we're going to grab a four inch wide

  • biscuit cutter and cut

  • What I'm guessing are about four inch wide rounds out of this piece of dough

  • Reserving the scraps and covering our dough rounds with plastic wrap wrapping our scraps in plastic wrap till we're ready to tap into that trap

  • I give up, that doesn't make any sense

  • Anyway, we're taking our dough rounds and we are placing our cannoli form into the center

  • brushing one side with egg white and wrapping it around the top placing the egg white brushed side over the other so it seals shut,

  • not unlike the loudmouth of a state witness after insert mobster joke here now if we're talking Italian pastry made in

  • 1945 we're talking about deep fried in lard

  • Why, I'm not sure but all the Nonna recipes that I looked up all said, lard

  • So let these guys go for two to four minutes or until they are golden brown

  • flipping at least once if possible and then draining on a wire rack which unlike paper towels is going to help them prevent from getting too soggy.

  • Then while we let these guys get cool enough to handle

  • It's time to take our ricotta out of the fridge, strain out any extra drips of moisture

  • it has not yet yielded and then press it through the fine mesh sieve using a rubber spatula

  • So we get a super creamy, super fine textured ricotta, to which we're going to add

  • 125 grams of sifted powdered sugar, this to make sure that we don't get any lumps of sugar in our

  • Cannoli cream and then using our whisk attachment, we're going to add a half teaspoon

  • Of ground cinnamon because we forgot and then we're gonna use the whisk attachment to whisk together our cannoli cream

  • We don't want to go too crazy

  • But we want to make this a nice, light, airy

  • Pastry filling for the decadently deep fried shells that now await us and I'm pretty sure I've covered this in previous episodes

  • But the best way to fill a pastry bag is by putting the guy into a drinking glass

  • nozzle down first and spreading the bag around the outside of the glass so we can just dump our pastry cream inside even though the

  • Shot is massively overexposed. That's better

  • do a little practice squeeze to make sure your

  • Piping skills are on point and then we just can't leave a dirty table like this

  • We have to clean it up with our fingers, and our mouths.

  • Alright, so now that the pastry shells have cooled off a little bit. It's time to separate them from their forms

  • Now these might stick a little bit if any errant egg white found its way outside the overlapping flaps of dough

  • But just be patient, squeeze and push and then set these aside to cool completely, before we begin the filling and decoration process.

  • Now, I personally like cannoli whose ends have been dipped in chocolate

  • I think it's a classy look.

  • There are a million in one ways to decorate cannoli, only you can be the Angelina Jolie of your cannoli

  • Sorry, Chef John, 's the best I could do. Once we've allowed the chocolate to harden up in the fridge for 15 minutes

  • We're going to start filling these guys with the cannoli cream

  • So start on one side and swirl in a circle until you filled the entire circumference of the interior of the cannoli

  • Does that make any sense? It'll make more sense when you do it for yourself

  • Just fill the thing with cream. And then it's time to talk garnishes.

  • Two very classic garnishes are finely chopped pistachios and miniature chocolate chips

  • We're just gonna dump those onto the open ends of each side of our cannoli

  • And then I'm going to leave three plain for posterity

  • But all of them are going to get a generous dusting of powdered sugar which for the third and final time has been, of course, sifted.

  • Plate them up all pretty and then decide which one you're gonna give a try for yourself

  • I think I'm gonna go for a

  • Chocolate chip one and I gotta say this is a Clean Plate club entrant. A light crispy deep-fried shell, a creamy and flavorful

  • Interior and fun, eye-catching garnishes. It's a Clean Plate club member for sure

  • But as has become the theme of last few episodes, I'm not gonna eat this entire plate of deep-fried sugar-coated decadence

  • I'm going to wrap it up and save it for a dinner party when my guests can induct it into the Clean Plate Club

  • Hey guys

  • I did a really fun project with Coppola Diamond Wines where we filmed a few videos and they're finally live

  • I created a few simple recipes that were inspired by summer adventures

  • You can check out the videos and recipes if you follow the links in the description

  • Coppola Wines. Cannoli. Francis Ford Coppola. Godfather. Are you getting the connection here?

  • If not, I'm sorry, but I think you'll enjoy the videos anyway

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

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