Homemade Pistachio Cannoli Recipe

Lasagna, pizza, and risotto may be some of the most popular Italian dishes, but did you know that pastries in Italy can lay claim to being just as good as the ones made in France? In Italy during the 17th century, convents were the most popular bakeries, and nuns sold fancy treats to the public through barred doors or slotted windows. When many recipes and literature were destroyed during the Dark Ages, nuns held onto their cherished pastry formulas, and we have them to thank for some of our most iconic pastries today. Nuns were the primary suppliers of elaborate pastries until the 19th century.

Cannoli originated in Sicily, and they've always consisted of a signature tube-shaped pastry case that gets fried up and filled with a sweet cream. Traditional Sicilian cannoli is often filled with a sheep's milk ricotta, but we're going to use a deliciously easy mascarpone filling for our recipe today. Once filled, the pastries can be garnished with candied fruit, almonds, or chocolate chips, but this recipe uses pistachios. Best eaten the day they're made, these sweet cream treats are light enough to follow a big Italian meal. While they do require deep frying, they are worth the effort and they cook in just a few minutes. Let's make some pistachio cannoli!

Even though this recipe can seem difficult at first, it actually doesn't take too much time or too many ingredients. Making cannoli starts by putting together a soft pastry dough made with flour, butter, sugar, and salt. The butter is blended into the dry ingredients, then an egg and a little wine are added to form it into a dough. This dough gets rolled and cut into circles, then fried up in vegetable oil to make the cannoli shells. Once the shells are cooled, you'll need some powdered sugar, heavy cream, mascarpone, and vanilla to whip up a quick filling. To garnish the pastries, we'll dip them in a little melted white chocolate and then douse them in a heavy coating of chopped pistachios.

Add flour, sugar, salt, and butter to a food processor bowl. Pulse 15 seconds.

Add wine and yolk and pulse 1 minute, until a crumbly dough forms.

Knead the dough on a clean work surface for 5 minutes.

Cover the dough with plastic and let it rest for 1 hour.

Roll the dough into a ⅛-inch thick, 5-inch wide strip.

Use a 3-inch cutter to cut 8 circles out of the dough, rerolling if necessary.

Preheat the oil to 350 F in a large pot.

Lightly grease cannoli tubes with cooking spray.

Wrap each dough circle around a cannoli tube and firmly press the overlapping edge to seal.

Fry cannoli shells in batches for 3-4 minutes, until they are a deep golden brown.

Let the shells drain and cool briefly on a wire rack, then remove them from the tubes.

Add mascarpone, cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla to a mixing bowl, and whip until thick and creamy.

Melt the white chocolate in a microwave in 15-second intervals, stirring between each.

Dip both ends of each cannoli in white chocolate, then in pistachios, and let them set for 10 minutes.

Add mascarpone cream mixture to a piping bag and pipe it into each cannoli.

Sprinkle with more pistachios and powdered sugar and serve.

The signature tube shape of cannoli means that they can be generously filled and easily eaten in a few bites. You can order metal cannoli tubes online — they should be four to five inches long and made of stainless steel. You can get a set of 4 for less than $10, so if you want to make cannoli often we recommend purchasing a set. Since cannoli are fried, it can be dangerous to try to hack a replacement for the metal tubes, which are designed to withstand high heat and sit in hot frying oil safely.

If you don't have tubes and want to try a hack, you can make a replacement out of folded aluminum foil to use in the same fashion as the recipe indicates. Use a generous coating of cooking oil and when you're moving the cannoli shells around in the pot be sure to use tongs for safety. However, if you think you'll be making cannoli on a regular basis, we strongly recommend using real cannoli tubes for the best outcome.

Since frying and filling a batch of cannoli can become quite the project, you might want to get ahead of the curve and make them in advance, which is perfectly fine. Once fully formed, these pistachio cannoli should last at least 1 to 2 days in the fridge. In time, however, their crunchy shells will soften due to moisture from the filling, so if you want the best cannoli we recommend serving them the day you make them.

Since they'll soften in the fridge when fully assembled, you have a few options for getting a start on the recipe without compromising their texture. You can make the cannoli dough up to a day in advance and leave it wrapped in the fridge overnight — just bring it back to room temperature before frying or it may take longer. You can also make the filling up to 2 days in advance and have it ready to go. The last option would be to fry the cannoli shells up to a day in advance and leave them in a loosely covered container overnight, and then fill them the next day right before serving them.