Cannoli Are So Easy With This Genius Hack

Cannoli, with their crunchy exterior and smooth, sweetened-ricotta filling, are easy to love, especially when dotted with chocolate chips, nuts, or fruit. Hailing from Sicily, these sweet treats are a mainstay at Italian cafes and restaurants around the world, and they even have a an interesting, erotic backstory. As the BBC notes, legend has it the cannolo's famous shape is not by accident. 

Truth be told, the one thing not to love about cannoli is potentially the preparation. Making traditional cannoli, while rewarding, can also be time consuming and requires specialized equipment, like cannoli dowels, to achieve the pastry's tubular shape. Making and frying dough, then repeatedly rolling it around the dowel can, after all, make quite a mess.

However, according to The Modest Cottage, there's an easy hack for making cannoli in an efficient way with very little clean up required. While some have lamented the Americanization of cannoli, as the Boston Globe notes, this hack still involves a traditional Italian ingredient to replace the need for making dough and firing up the cooking oil.

According to the Courier Post, pizzelle means "little pizza," which is an appropriate description for these round Italian cookies with a waffle-like texture. The thin, pretty confections can be topped with anything from powdered sugar and fruit, to jam or gelato. They're also the star of the show in this grown-up Choco Taco.

While pizzelle can be made at home using an inexpensive pizzelle maker, they're also widely available at grocery stores or can be ordered online. Packs of pizzelle typically have at least a dozen or more cookies, making them not only a time-saver for cannoli-making but also a cost-efficient alternative.

According to The Modest Cottage, 25-30 seconds per single pizzella is all the time needed in the microwave to quickly warm the cookie enough to roll it into a tube. Once all of the pizzelle have been rolled and cooled, they can then be filled with the sweetened-ricotta filling for the quickest cannoli you'll ever make.