Cannoli Sundae with Ricotta Ice Cream

Growing up, my sister was always a huge fan of cannoli. I remember my grandfather buying a dozen for special occasions, but only allowing people to eat 6, reserving 6 for Allie. I have been excited to try my hand in ice cream making again. In Bermuda, the conditions weren’t right and my kitchen aid mixer ice cream maker attachment failed more often than it succeeded. I recently acquired a cheap ice cream maker that uses ice instead of sticking the whole bowl in the freezer, which I personally prefer and I think does a much better job. Ricotta ice cream has been on my list for awhile and a cannoli sundae was the perfect excuse to make it.

I like to make my own ricotta, but I didn’t have time that day. Still I took the time to go to a specialty market to get the good stuff instead of supermarket brands. You might say “Ricotta only takes about 20 minutes, isn’t this the same amount of time it took you to go to the store?” This is true, but then I would have hot ricotta and ice cream base needs to be very cold when it goes into the machine. Most ice creams start with a custard, but i didn’t want any eggs taking away from the ricotta flavor.  The image above is just ricotta, cream, and lemon.

Very tasty and super rich.

The food in my beard… dot com.

As the ice cream hardened further in the freezer, I got the cannoli dough ready.

I needed much more wine and butter than the recipe called for to hold this dough together.

It was still super crumbly.

Pistachios are a classic cannoli ingredient.

The dough was hard to work with and you need to roll it really thin.

Fluffy and smooth.

Pistachios, mini chocolate chips, and some nutella.

The fried cannoli shell goes on top.

The sundae passed the sister test!

Even though it passed the sister test, it wasn’t an all around hit. 7 people had a sundae, 5 liked it, one was on the fence, and one said “this is disgusting, are you guys just eating it to make Dan feel better?” If I made it again, it would be a bit better, mainly because it needed a lot more sugar in the ice cream. I used only a half cup of powdered sugar because I half followed a cannoli recipe that used that much sugar for a pound of ricotta. The only problem was I added a quart of cream to it! I don’t like things overly sweet, so I thought this would be fine, and while tasting the ice cream base, my sister and I agreed not to add any more sugar. After it was frozen, the sweetness was muted a bit. Another complaint of the dish was that it was too rich. To me, this isn’t a fault of the dessert because it’s not meant to be a 5 scooper or anything. It is supposed to be rich, it’s CHEESE ICE CREAM.  More of an elegant small dessert at a nice restaurant.

I used the this cannoli dough recipe.

Serve with pistachios, chocolate chips and nutella.