A criticism often levelled at cookery writers is: ‘I could just buy that at the supermarket’, which is an apparent slam-dunk counter to the time and effort needed to make the thing yourself, i.e. why would you bother? With such people, I find myself stutteringly defending cookbooks, recipes and the practice of cooking as a whole.
My defence is both obvious and compelling: I can make it better, I can make it cheaper, I know exactly what’s going into it if I’ve made it and, crucially, cooking is one of life’s pleasures. I actively enjoy kneading and proving and waiting and peeking in the oven and stirring and whisking and slicing. Making the thing is often the whole point – the end result a delightful by-product.
However, living in 2026, I am rarely able to respond to the core argument as the item that I’m making is almost always available in the supermarket. You can get anything nowadays. That is, apart from cannoli.
Filled just before eating, freshly made cannoli are unmatchable: elegant, indulgent and unique
In its homeland of Sicily, cannoli abounds: you cannot walk into a café or a bakery without being accosted by pyramids of ricotta-filled cigars smelling of nuts and lemons and cinnamon. But it is absolutely impossible to get good cannoli from the supermarket and, unless you live in Sicily, it’s incredibly hard to find cannoli anywhere else.
A cannoli should be a perfect contrast of a crisp shell, robust enough to hold its creamy filling but tender and brittle enough that it gives way as soon as you eat it. It is nearly impossible to achieve this if you want the cannoli to last beyond a couple of hours.
Food writer Nicola Lamb calls cannoli ‘the mayfly of pastry’, which really does capture its ephemeral nature. A cannoli more than a few hours old is a tragic cannoli: filled in advance, the creamy ricotta makes the shell soggy and sad, while attempts to prevent this lead to thick, firm shells. Also, if you are leaving the cannoli hanging around, they need refrigerating to preserve the ricotta, which makes the whole thing unpleasantly cold and the shells feel greasy when you eat them. So, no, you can’t just buy these in a supermarket.
The dough is unlike any other dough I’ve tasted or worked with: flavoured with just a little cocoa and cinnamon, moistened with red wine and enriched with lard, it is worked until smooth, and then rolled repeatedly until it is very, very thin. During this rolling, the dough is folded over on itself, creating tightly pressed layers which, when fried, bubble up into those distinctive cannoli blisters. Wrapped around metal moulds and sealed with egg white, the shells form perfect tubes when fried, which slip eagerly off their moulds, ready to be filled with sweetened ricotta, often flavoured with pistachio, hazelnut, chocolate or citrus. I keep mine simple, folding through a palmful of candied lemon and orange peel, diced so finely it’s less of a flavour and more of a perfume.
But, oh boy, is it an undertaking: food processors, kneading, a pasta machine for rolling, cannoli-specific moulds, deep-frying and piping bags. None of it requires particular skill, but it’s certainly a production. If you don’t fancy a project, cannoli is not for you, but if you do, this one pays dividends.
There are always ways to make things easier for yourself: while all of this can be done by hand, it takes longer and is harder. Instead, I bring my dough together in a food processor, which makes the whole thing clean and simple, as well as kick-starting the gluten development in the pastry. Using a pasta machine to roll out the dough means that you are quickly able to get the thinness needed for the shell, which is much harder by hand.
I also tend to spread my cannoli-making over two days: on the first, I strain my ricotta and make and chill my dough, and on the second I roll and fry the dough, and fill the shells.
Filled just before eating, freshly made cannoli are unmatchable: elegant, indulgent and unique. Just hold on to that thought when you’re frying your third batch of shells. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Makes: 12-16 cannoli
Hands-on time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 20 minutes
For the shells
- 200g plain flour
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 30g lard or butter
- 1 egg
- 50ml red wine
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- Neutral oil, for frying
For the filling
- 500g ricotta
- 90g icing sugar
- 50g candied citrus peel, finely diced
- 50g shelled pistachios, finely chopped
- Place the ricotta in a sieve lined with muslin and leave to drain for as long as possible.
- Put the dry ingredients in a food processor, add the lard/butter and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir the wine, vinegar and egg yolk together (reserve the egg white for later) and add, pulsing until a dough forms. Turn out onto your work surface and knead until smooth. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least two hours.
- Divide your dough into four pieces. Take one and roll it using a pasta machine on the widest gauge. Fold the dough in half, and roll it again. Work down through the settings, folding the dough over each time. It’s possible to use a rolling pin.
- Lay out the dough and stamp out 11-12cm circles. Wrap a circle around each cannoli mould, using the egg white to seal it.
- Fill a deep pan halfway with oil and heat to 180°C. Lower the wrapped cannoli moulds into the oil and cook for one minute, then lift and place on kitchen paper. Slide the shells from the moulds carefully. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
- Before serving, beat the ricotta, icing sugar and candied peel together and decant into a piping bag with a large star nozzle. Pipe into each cannoli shell, then dip each end in the chopped pistachios.
Join Olivia Potts for Truffles and Trattoria in Rome on 2-6 December 2026. For more details about this Spectator Club trip, go to spectator.com/tastings.
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